While A24’s output is largely adored by critics and successful at the box office, Death of a Unicorn’s underwhelming debut proves that there is one genre that the distributor can’t quite get right. A24 has come a long way since the 2013 release of director Roman Coppola’s infamous flop A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. That self-indulgent Charlie Sheen vehicle might have been the first of A24’s long list of movies, but it is not one that many viewers think of when the distributor is mentioned in 2025 thanks to their stellar track record.
From The Witch to Moonlight, to Hereditary and Uncut Gems, the distributor is now synonymous with hit movies that strike a balance between ambitious arthouse vision and mainstream appeal. Over the last 12 years, A24 has become a mark of quality in almost every genre. However, although Death of a Unicorn’s cliffhanger ending might fit with their back catalog of ambiguous, surreal output, the movie’s reception wasn’t as rapturous as most major A24 movies. In fact, Death of a Unicorn exposes a consistent gap in the distributor’s output.
Death of a Unicorn is A24’s Latest Critically Underperforming Horror Comedy
The Distributor Has Attempted To Pull Off This Genre Blend Many Times
Death of a Unicorn is the latest in a long string of horror comedy flops for A24, as the distributor continues to struggle with this particular genre. Death of a Unicorn’s brutal kills didn’t win over critics as the movie debuted to a critical score of only 53% on Rotten Tomatoes, and its $10 million opening weekend failed to recoup a relatively low $15 million budget. Although this box office under-performance could be blamed in part on A Minecraft Movie’s unexpectedly mᴀssive success, the critical indifference that Death of a Unicorn met with is less easy to excuse.
2025’s Opus, 2024’s Y2K, 2023’s Beau Is Afraid, 2021’s False Positive, 2018’s Slice, and 2014’s Life After Beth all struggled to win over critics.
Moreover, A24’s output over the last decade paints a damning portrait of its comedy horror efforts. 2025’s Opus, 2024’s Y2K, 2023’s Beau Is Afraid, 2021’s False Positive, 2018’s Slice, and 2014’s Life After Beth all struggled to win over critics, and Opus, Y2K, and Beau Is Afraid were all also major financial failures upon release. Like Death of a Unicorn, which stars Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega, Opus and Y2K boasted buzzy young actors in their lead roles. Opus featured The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri, while Y2K starred Snow White’s Rachel Zegler.
Ti West’s X, Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou’s Talk to Me, Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow, and Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies are just some of the distributor’s successful horror тιтles.
Despite their appealing casts, Y2K earned only $4 million on a budget of $15 million while Opus made a mere $2 million on a budget of $10 million. Horror has historically over-performed for A24, with some of the studio’s biggest hits coming from the genre. Ti West’s X, Ari Aster’s Midsommar, Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou’s Talk to Me, Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow, and Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies are just some of the distributor’s successful horror тιтles but, notably, only the last of these is a horror comedy.
Death of a Unicorn’s Box Office Struggles Underline A24’s Horror Comedy Problem
Opus, Y2K, and Beau Is Afraid All Struggled Financially Too
The majority of A24’s horror comedy movies have struggled with both reviewers and viewers alike, even when they come from otherwise reliable creators. Jenna Ortega’s earlier horror movies included mᴀssive hits like Scream 2022 and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, while director Ari Aster’s Midsommar and Hereditary were both huge hits before 2023’s Beau Is Afraid. Despite this, Beau Is Afraid earned only $12 million on a budget of $35 million. This was a catastrophic under-performance that could only partially be attributed to its three-hour runtime, especially considering the movie’s star-studded cast.
Why A24’s Horror Comedies Haven’t Worked (Yet)
Most of the Distributor’s Horror Comedies Have Been Too Broad and Silly
According to critics, the biggest problem with A24’s horror comedy movies is their shared tone. The main shared critique of Y2K, Opus, Death of a Unicorn, Slice, and False Positive was that they bounced between overt, broad comedy and sudden moments of darkness and gore without ever finding a consistent tone. The surprisingly brutal, sad deaths in Y2K jarred with its irreverent, self-parodic sense of humor, while the goofy satire of Opus made attempts at straightforward horror feel silly.
Death of a Unicorn struggles with the same issue, as the movie doesn’t take its uber-wealthy villains as seriously as The White Lotus or Succession. As such, Death of a Unicorn‘s story struggles to truly scare, but its comedy is too dark to feel like harmlesss fun thanks to some surprisingly grim deaths. Although this criticism doesn’t apply to some A24 horror comedies, like the aggressively abrasive Beau Is Afraid, it is the common denominator shared by many of the distributor’s under-performing тιтles in the genre. Thus, Death of a Unicorn regrettably keeps A24’s lone cold streak going.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes
