The rub is that he has to use his powers of bringing out the worst in people to find his girlfriend’s REAL killer BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE! Haha, just kidding about that last part, there really isn’t much urgency to this seemingly-pretty-easy quest at all. The horns make everyone he comes into contact with reveal their darkest impulses, which are more like the kind of “dark” impulses you’d see in a beer commercial – secretly gay cops, a slutty waitress, a mom who hates her hyperactive daughter, a girl eats too many donuts – all about as edgy as a JC Penney’s window display. The townspeople all think Ig did it and the next thing you know, he’s growing horns. Let’s just get through this before my hands start reflexively wanking: Daniel Radcliffe plays Ignatius Parish (religious allusions that serve zero purpose will become a leitmotif here), whose beautiful, perfect, crucifix-wearing angel of a girlfriend (Juno Temple, who does get naked a little) is murdered one day.

It spends half the movie trying unconvincingly to resolve a plot device it never does anything with in the first place. I knew the film was going to be very bad about two minutes into it, when right from the word go it had that broad, objective-free acting style you typically see in insurance commercials. It felt like a hyperactive kid just making things up as he goes along, like he had a drawing of Daniel Radcliffe in devil horns on the table and was forced to improvise a story around it at gunpoint. That’s the most shocking thing about it, actually, that it was based on source material. Horns, directed by Alexander Aja of Piranha 3D (which I actually sorta liked) and starring Daniel Radcliffe, is based on a novel by Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill. Here is my original review from Fantastic Fest.

Horns opens today in a handful of markets.

Horns by joe hill summary