User reviews

In a small town, Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe) is accused by the inhabitants of killing his sweetheart Merrin Williams (Juno Temple). Even his parents believe that he is guilty and only his childhood friend and lawyer Lee Tourneau (Max Minghella) believes Ig is telling the truth. Out of blue, Ig sees horns sprouting on his forehead, but soon he finds that the horns are a blessing since people confess their sins and inner dark desires to him. Ig uses the horns to discover who the killer of his beloved girlfriend is.

"Horns" is a weird and mesmerizing movie that entwines several genres. The plot is unique and anything can happen in this original story. The conclusion could be better but does not totally disappoint. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Amaldiçoado" ("Cursed")

Note: On 06 July 2023, I saw this film again.

I loved 'Horns', It isn't yet another recycled movie to keep you entertained while you eat your popcorn, what it is is completely different from anything you've seen before. The film has no specific genre, it's a jumble of ideas. And I like that.

The acting is fantastic all round, At the start it was strange hearing Daniel Radcliffe speaking in an American accent but he does it brilliantly and his performance all the way through is just brilliant. There isn't a single character in the film who isn't 100% believable and vital to the story.

Visually, the film is also terrific. I could watch the whole thing on mute and still enjoy it hugely.

As many people have said before this definitely is not a film for everyone. It's a 'Love it' or 'Hate it' film and I can understand why many people are gathering at the 'Hate it' end of the spectrum, although, in my opinion, those people are wrong. I'd love it if more filmmakers took risks like this instead of playing it safe by recycling previous tired-out ideas.

I strongly recommend you give this film a go.

Well this was pretty good, although it wasn't quite what I expected. It's not a horror movie, for those going into it expecting it to be. The backbone of it is a murder mystery but there are supernatural elements added to it, as well as a good bit of humor. The mystery part isn't the greatest. I figured out who the killer was immediately with little effort. I can only imagine most other viewers will, as well. But the other stuff with the horns and the way they make people act provides for some nice dark comedy. I was impressed with Daniel Radcliffe, although he needs to keep working on his accent. His pronunciation is a little too pointed at times. Juno Temple is always great to watch. Wish she was in this more. The rest of the cast is solid. Nice to see Heather Graham in a small but fun role. It's a good movie. It's not without flaws but it is pretty original and not pretentious, which is a rarity these days. Goes on a little longer than necessary but I was never bored. I liked the ending, too.

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.

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.

The first word I said after the watch was 'unbelievable'. That means the movie is not bad, but how come I missed it for this long. This is the best dark-fantasy movie I have seen recently. But earlier, I thought it would be like the movie 'Tusk' which made me a little uncomfortable to watch. So in the end, what's the difference between the tusk and/or the horn. Both come in a pair and animals have it to defend themselves from the threat. When I watched that movie, I lost interest in this. Yep, it is a silly reason and now I feel bad for that.

This movie dominated by the British cast, especially for having Daniel Radcliffe and Juno Temple I thought it was British film, actually it was not. It was a Canadian-US jointly produced, adapted from a book of the same name and directed by 'Mirror' director. The story was so good, not genuine, though explored the theme very well. For every few minutes later, the narration was taking a turn and that made the plot to get lot tighter before heading for the concluding part.

Maybe this the best movie of Radcliffe that I've seen after his goodbye to 'Harry Potter' movie series. I don't think he's a chocolate boy type, but this kind of movie suits him well. I think he should get muscles for more movie like this, but his height is another negative factor. The film was entirely shot in Canada, the photography was great, music as well as performances. Even those settings like woods, tree house feels kind of wet English and Scottish atmosphere that fits for a devilish mythical charactered movie like this. I regret for reviewing it so delayedly, but anyway I did it and over it, so I hope you watch it very soon as well if you haven't seen it yet.

7/10

I give this movie a 10/10 for many reasons and here is three to keep it simple:

The first is the impeccable acting. This entire movie was cast perfectly, and Daniel Radcliffe broke the Harry Potter typecast and gave us a phenomenal performance in Horns. I definitely felt the chemistry between Radcliffe and Temple, both of them were outstanding and sexy.

The second is the book-to-screen adaption. Aside from leaving a few key points of Lee's back story out, the film kept the originality and humor that Joe Hill's novel blessed us with. I don't ever go into a book-to-film adaption expecting everything to math perfectly, and this movie did everything right!

The third is the cinematography. Such a beautiful and artful film, everything about the way this movie looks is delivered perfectly.

If you have not watched this movie or at least read the novel, please take the time to do so. It is such an original story and well worth it! It's disturbing, funny, sad, satisfying and so much more!

'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

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!

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

I was excited for this flick. I thought it looked like it could be a fun, crazy supernatural whodunnit kind of story. So, I went in with some fairly high hopes. Did the film live up to them? Well...not exactly.

It's well acted (Radcliffe gives a solid performance when he's actually focusing on acting and not on his accent) and incredibly well shot. I could not get over how gorgeous some of the cinematography is. However, there are a few things that bog it down considerably for me. The voice-over narration feels very forced in there and I thought that some of the exposition dialogue really killed lots of the more dramatic moments. It also suffers from very uneven pacing and the story flows is too jumbled at times.

Overall, I recommend it. It's a fine flick that you won't regret watching at least once, but it ultimately didn't do much for me.

With that said, a lot of stuff in this film was stupid, from wtf dialog, to wtf sex scenes, to wtf moments in general, this film had its fair share of painfully bad and laughably bad. I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I don't love it but I enjoyed it for the most part.

loosely based on Joe Hill's novel of the same name. Daniel Radcliffe stars as a man who is accused of raping and murdering his girlfriend (Juno Temple) and uses his newly discovered paranormal abilities to uncover the real killer.

I almost consider this film part comedy. Like seriously, there's no way everything in this film is supposed to be taken seriously, you just gotta take it for granted. At first that's what I was mostly enjoying, though a lot of scenes go nowhere, so it's still a really sloppy script overall. Later on, I was not expecting to become as invested in the relationship with him and his girlfriend as I was. I morally cared for their relationship overall. At first when it jumped to her being dead, I felt like they make us feel bad for somebody we don't know that well, but it actually does a good job of building up their relationship and the friends that go with it, and gives everybody an interesting motive for their actions. I found myself gasping to the romantic discovery near the end.

Like I said, a lot of scenes are stupid and the script is almost trying to suck, but it makes for some laughably bad moments where I was dying laughing. In the end, it isn't a good film, but it seems well adapted to the novel. Daniel Radcliffe is actually really good in it. He has comedic moments, dramatic moments, and he's up there with Matthew McConaughey in terms of being able to cry. I wasn't expecting to be so invested in the romance in the film, but like I said, it's actually well developed, and quite tragic near the end. I didn't love it for obvious reasons, but it's a better romantic novel adaptation than Twilight or something else, so there's no reason to hate it any more.

This film deserves an 11. I wish I didn't rate any of my other movies as a 10 because this deserves a score above all others.

It's so original, like nothing I've ever experienced before. It's like an adult themed fairy tale, a cross between Bridge to Terabithia and Martyrs. The symbolism and themes throughout spark deep reflection and thought. There are some rather disturbing scenes but they are so creative, so artistic.

See this and you will not be underwhelmed. Just keep an open mind or you will be completely freaked out and might want to stop watching, don't press that pause or stop button and you won't regret it.

Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe) and Merrin Williams are deeply in love since their early childhood. After her brutal murder, the town is outraged believing him to be guilty. Even his parents aren't sure. The evidence is against him. After sleeping with barmaid Glenna Shepherd, he wakes up the next morning with horns growing out of his head. Now, people confess to him their darkest thoughts, obey his command, and unleash their hidden desires. He can bring out their memories. He tries to piece together that fateful night and find Merrin's killer.

The premise brings out the darkness of humanity. It does struggle to settle on a specific level. It has too much silliness at times which threatens to make the movie a light weight. As for the murder mystery, it seems obvious from early on. There are probably too many hints. This movie has a good idea set up. Radcliffe is a fine lead. It stumbles once in awhile but manages to cross the finish line with plenty in the tank.

In terms of adapting Joe Hill's book onto the big screen, there are a number of things that go right for "Horns". Sadly, this effort also does not seem to realize what the tone of the novel is all about, rendering it an adequate film and no more.

For a basic plot summary, "Horns" tells the story of Ig Parrish (Daniel Radcliffe), who wakes up one morning after a wicked bender with horns growing out of his head. Not only that, but these horns seem to have the power to influence other people based on Ig's conversations with them. Suspected in the recent death of longtime girlfriend Merrin (Juno Temple), Ig tries to put his life back together and reckon with his new protuberances at the same time. Interactions with best friend Lee (Mix Minghella) & brother Terry (Joe Anderson) help start connecting the dots as to what actually happened to Merrin.

The main problem with this Alexandre Aja-directed flick is that it doesn't understand that Hill's novel isn't really about the horns. I understand that they are obviously the visual standout of the story, and perhaps work better on the big screen than even in print, but they are not the driving force of the story. Rather, Hill constructs a story where the horns are little more than the impetus for Ig to figure out his shady past and move forward.

In this adaptation, however, it is very clear that Ig's interactions with the horns are paramount, and the character interactions are thrown in as best they can be. This leads to a film that technically adapts the nuts-and-bolts of Hill's novel pretty well, but loses most of its literary soul, if you will, in the process. Whereas the story should be absolutely brimming with deep character relationships and interesting observations, it instead is rather bland on that front because the focus is on the visual gags or off-beat humor.

Also, I'd only go so far as to call the acting in this one "so-so". Sometimes, Radcliffe nails the role (especially when he is in a drunken stupor). Other times, however, he seems far too goofy to be taken seriously. The auxiliary cast is okay, but again not really given much room to shine because the whole thing is built away from them.

I understand why this film was made in this particular fashion (it's the easiest way to do it), but I wish it would have built from the characters outward instead. Hill's novel is one of my favorites of all-time, and I wish this film could have given it a better cinematic reputation instead of a solid "meh".

I think Daniel Radcliffe has damaged his career, he IS Harry Potter he took a role made it his own and it is now very difficult to see him as anything else.

When I heard about this R rated title of his I had little interest but knew one day I'd get around to it. What I didn't realise was just how much I was going to enjoy it.

Horns is nothing particularly special, but it has it's merits and I can confidently say I walked away satisfied with what I had watched.

With a fantastic cast, a gripping storyline and a really quite neat ending I'm not entirely convinced Radcliffe will break free of the Potter curse but this was a good start.

The Good:

Excellent story

Juno Temple

David Morse

The Bad:

The "Potter" curse was certainly present

Things I learnt from this movie:

Where Is My Mind? is officially on every movies soundtrack

Juno Temple is allergic to clothing

This is quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. I didn't know anything about it at all, and only watched it because I wanted to see Daniel Radcliffe in a different role from Harry Potter. I must say I was impressed with His American accent and his acting, but otherwise it was a stinker. The screenwriters obviously have an extremely limited vocabulary, and although I attempted to keep an open mind and give it a chance, I found much of the movie offensive. The number of positive reviews this movie received is astounding, and I can't believe I stuck with it to the end. I kept thinking it had to get better at some point, but it never did.

Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe) is suspected of killing his girlfriend Merrin (Juno Temple), but he maintains his innocence. When a pair of horns begins to grow from his forehead, he discovers that he also possesses strange powers that help him to solve the mystery behind Merrin's death.

I'm not going to pretend for a second that I understand the meaning behind Ig's cranial growths and their bizarre powers - there is clearly plenty of theological subtext about the nature of good and evil in this film that flew right over my head -- but I will say that I had a good time regardless. It's a bold, bizarre, one-of-a-kind movie that, while not entirely successful, is still very entertaining -- a welcome treat, and definitely the only horror in which a man grows magical truth-inducing horns that I have ever seen.

Radcliffe surprises with a strong central performance and Alexandre Aja directs with an assured hand. My only real complaints are the CGI snakes -- they're not great -- and the fact that the identity of the real killer is fairly obvious from the outset.