Horns

Horns is the latest film from Alexandre Aja, the French director responsible for such films as High Tension and the Maniac remake. He also made a very memorable remake of The Hills Have Eyes, which demonstrates that this guy really knows his stuff. Unfortunately along with the good he has also served up some mediocre stuff as well. Although Horns isn't a bad film, it is still well below what this guy is capable of. My problem with Horns lies in the characters! Their interactions with each other never really felt authentic and really took me out of the emotion that the film needed for it to carry. Therefore, as a result of lack of sympathy, the moments where the main character and his love come on screen, i was constantly looking at how much time was left in the movie. Having said this, the movie doesn't come without positives. I thought it was very funny in places and there is a moment of gore, but fans of Alexandre Aja, expecting a blood bath, will be disappointed. Lack of gore wouldn't have been a problem if the story worked on an emotional level, but sadly it didn't. Overall, Horns is very creative, but it lacked the interest it needed to succeed!

Daniel Radcliffe has come a long way since his stint as a wizard, and "Horns" is a great vehicle for him to continue to grow as an actor and expand his presence to those in the audience who gave the little Potter-head a miss.

Joe Hill, son of Stephen King, has crafted a tale here I can honestly say as far as I know, has never been done, and that's always a good start. The concept is fun, full of surprises, and never dulls.

The problem I am finding with great premises is that it's very hard to fully utilise them, to drain them for everything they are worth, and that is where Horns loses ratings; it could have pushed the boundaries in the fun department just a little bit more, but then, in hindsight, doing that risks spoiling some of the darker elements littered throughout the narrative.

It is a violent film at times, but if you can grow some horns and stomach a few graphic scenes, then you may enjoy it.

I'm a sucker for originality and for movies that try do something different. I get sick and tired of seeing the same thing over and over again and wish more filmmakers would take a chance instead doing the same old things. "Horns" is probably one of the most original movies I have ever seen and I loved that about it. It combines so many different movie genres into one fun, crazy, heart felt story that unfortunately is not going to be for everyone.

Right off the bat I could tell I was going to enjoy this. It starts off as what looks to be your run of the mill thriller flick then quickly spirals into some incredibly out there. Once the Horns are introduced things just take a shift into the bizarre, and I loved that. There are some truly hilarious and insane scenes. The film does a nice job of being cleverly light and rather dark at the same time.

The acting was excellent. Daniel Ratcliffe does a great job of being American, it was weird to hear him without the accent at first but he does such a good job that I eventually completely forgot that he was even British. The rest of the supporting cast did a great job, all the characters were extremely interesting and well written so that may have had something to do with it.

Overall I really enjoyed this. It definitely isn't for everybody and has a pretty long run time of 2 hours so I could see people getting bored with it if it isn't exactly there thing. But if you want to see something that you haven't seen before, something that tries to be original but not too overly artsy, something with heart then I suggest giving this a try.

8/10

The titles says it all. The first half of the movie was great, the second half was less good and the last 15 minutes were terribly bad, so bad actually that it if you'd watch it with friends it could be entertaining again. Thus, I'm torn with my rating. If they'd made the second half of the movie as good as the first half, it would've been easily a 8. However, with that ending, I get why people rated it a 5 or 6.

'Horns (2013)' is more a mystery than anything else and there thankfully is a nice, self-contained little story at the heart of the piece, one that doesn't really focus on the eponymous horns so much as use their abilities to see the story through to its end (in terms of both theme and plot). The eventual, albeit disappointing, reveal isn't necessarily obvious, either, as the film spends a lot of time successfully muddying the waters when it comes to whether or not our 'hero' might actually deserve the spiky things growing from his skull. While it's usually entertaining and not afraid to also be properly dark, the flick does have its fair share of quite severe tonal issues and a third act that doesn't really live up to what it could've been - bolstered by that disappointing reveal I mentioned earlier. This ultimately makes for an experience that's enjoyable but flawed, sometimes frustratingly so. 6/10