Saturday Night Movie: Horns

In the aftermath of his girlfriend's mysterious death, a young man awakens to find strange horns sprouting from his temples.

Director: Alexandre Aja

Writers: Keith Bunin (screenplay), Joe Hill (based on the novel by)

Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Max Minghella 

2 h /Drama Fantasy Horror / 2013

Musings:
I have read the book, but I could not remember all of it. Yes the whole horns thing, his gf being dead. Everyone thinking he did it. But I did manage to forget how it ended. Which was good, cos it was a bit of a mystery then.

I did like the concept of the horns and what they made people do. It moved this ordinary mystery murder drama to the fantasy realm. Weird ass horns doing weird ass things.

And I hate the townspeople. Stop judging him! Find the real killer! But at the same time I had doubts a bit into the movie. Who really did it?

Radcliffe is good, he gets darker and darker and does it well. Not Potter there ;)

Good movie. I like the dark humour, well humour and humour, more the effed up way people gets.

Horns - Joe Hill

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with one hell of a hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples.

Once, Ig lived the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned American musician, and the younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, Ig had security and wealth and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more - he had the love of Merrin Williams, a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.

Then beautiful, vivacious Merrin was gone - raped and murdered, under inexplicable circumstances - with Ig the only suspect. He was never tried for the crime, but in the court of public opinion, Ig was and always would be guilty.

Now Ig is possessed with a terrible new power - with just a touch he can see peoples' darkest desires - to go with his terrible new look, and he means to use it to find the man who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge; it's time the devil had his due. 

My thoughts:

This was kind of depressing in a way, not always, just that, that poor poor guy! For  Ig has been shunned, everyone, well almost everyone think he raped and killed his girlfriend. And that his rich family got him free. Just move Ig, move. That town is horrible.

But as this is horror (among other things) then things will get spooky. He gets horns, people start telling him their secrets, desires. And they tell him f:ed up things. Disturbing things, things he sure does not want to hear. Especially not from people he cares about.

Though I must say, it's not straight out scary horror. It's a mix of horror, thriller, paranormal and suspense.

With this new found ability the most obvious route is of course to try to find the real killer. The road there will give flashbacks about their love story, his friends, family and what led up to that dark night.

And it will get freaky too! I will not spoil things, but wtf? Some seriously weird things going on at the end.

Conclusion:

I liked his journey, and story. I never knew where I had everyone, and I so wanted to real killer to pay in the end. And the end, well it was fitting for horror. 

Cover

The movie tie-in one

Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Gollancz (23 Oct 2014)
Horror Thriller
For review