Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for Death of a Unicorn!

A24’s Death of a Unicorn delivered a number of grisly deaths, and writer/director Alex Scharfman is sharing why one was as brutal as it was, despite the character being undeserving. Having incurred the wrath of two adult forms of the creature after running over and experimenting on their foal, the movie’s star-studded roster find themselves the target of two carnivorous unicorns. Most of the group meet their ends by Death of a Unicorn‘s ending, including Sunita Mani’s Dr. Bhatia, who’s torn in half by the parents, despite being a voice of reason during their experiments.

During an interview with ScreenRant for Death of a Unicorn‘s release, Scharfman explained the reason behind Bhatia’s brutal killing in the movie. The writer/director acknowledged that Mani’s character was “largely undeserving” of her fate, and that it got “a big reaction” at the movie’s SXSW premiere and test screenings, but because she had a hand in the experiments on the young unicorn, she was still a target for them. See what Scharfman explained below:

Well, the Sunita one gets a big reaction, certainly, because she seems largely undeserving. She does steal a vial of unicorn horn, so the idea being they’re playing in absolutes. A small infraction is still an infraction, and that counts.

What Bhatia’s Killing In Death Of A Unicorn Means For The Film

A Prime Example Of The Dangers Of Greed

While Scharfman utilizes his central concept for plenty of major deaths, the two most-talked-about thus far are certainly those of Bhatia and Richard E. Grant’s Odell, the latter of whom is impaled through the head by one of the unicorn parents. Where the latter is generally considered a welcome kill, given how villainous he becomes after being rejuvenated by the foal’s horn shavings and blood, the former proved a surprise since she was one of the morally acceptable characters in the cast, not showing the same ego as the wealthy family she works for.

As Scharfman notes above, however, her hands are not completely clean of sin in Death of a Unicorn‘s story, particularly right before her demise, as she was still in possession of one of the vials of unicorn horn shavings. The movie reveals that the unicorns have something of an electromagnetic sense of each other and their horns, so even while Bhatia may have presented a benevolent, non-threatening personality to both the audience and the unicorn parents, she still had wronged them with her actions, and was therefore viable for being killed in their eyes.

Beyond just being a gruesome death to entertain horror genre fans, though, Mani’s killing in Death of a Unicorn also serves as a warning for the characters around her, particularly Paul Rudd’s Elliot. Though also one of the more morally clean characters, he does frequently display signs of greed under the guise of providing a better life for himself and Jenna Ortega’s Ridley. However, in relinquishing the foal’s horn in the movie’s ending and trying to kill Will Poulter’s Shep before he can tie the parents up, he’s able to avoid the same fate as Bhatia.

Our Take On Bhatia’s Killing In Death Of A Unicorn

A Good Mix Of Thematic & Gruesome

As with most creature features, Death of a Unicorn utilizes its central concept for as many shock-inducing kills as it does thematic ones, and Bhatia’s proves to be a nice mix of the two. While she certainly didn’t deserve the extent of her brutality, considering she was torn in half, and was still largely critical of the Leopold family throughout the film, it did prove to be a surprising choice on Scharfman’s part that kept audiences on their toes for the fates of the rest of the cast.