--- description: Daniel Radcliffe looks like the Devil in this odd combination of horror film, social satire and YA love story title: Horns Movie Review: Daniel Radcliffe Stars in Devilish COmedy image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt240b50c28a2cb096/698763a7428a9ea5a9cc4d4f/horns.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Review: _Horns_: Harry Potter Goes Just a Little Voldemort by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 30, 2014 10:08 PM CUT  Max Minghella and Daniel Radcliffe in Horns Max Minghella and Daniel Radcliffe in HornsRADiUS-TWC by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) ## Richard Corliss Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Oct 30, 2014 10:08 PM CUT Ignatius Parrish (Daniel Radcliffe) has the power to make people reveal their deepest compulsions: eating all the doughnuts in a box, having sex right now with a coworker, wreaking harm on a balky child. Ig doesn’t really want this gift; it’s a byproduct of the satanic horns that started sprouting from his temples after his one true love Merrin (Juno Temple) was raped and murdered. The police have no evidence to pin the crime on him, but the angry townspeople are convinced he did it. They carry placards that warn, “You Will Burn in Hell,” and the local tabloid paper runs a photo of Ig with the headline “Is This the Devil?” The horns are the objective correlative of prevailing public opinion: Ig is in danger of turning into the awful entity that ignorant people think he is. Last week Jim Carrey showed up on _Saturday Night Live_ as a red-caped, hornéd Presley — “Helvis.” Now here’s [Harry Potter](http://entertainment.time.com/2011/07/10/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-2-review/ "undefined") with a Voldemort vibe. Directed by Alexandre Aja and scripted by Keith Bunin from Joe Hill’s 2010 novel, _Horns_ is a horror film with higher ambitions than the usual Halloween movie fare. Actually, it has more on its mind and too much on its plate. The movie takes the concerns of many David Cronenberg chillers about grotesque bodily transformation (_Rabid_, [_The Fly_](http://entertainment.time.com/2007/10/29/top-25-horror-movies/slide/the-fly-1986-2/ "undefined"), [_Naked Lunch_](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,974559-4,00.html "undefined")) and grafts them improbably onto YA romance tales about doomed young people ([_The Fault in Our Stars_](http://time.com/2822847/the-fault-in-our-stars-movie-review/ "undefined"), [_If I Stay_](http://time.com/3147883/if-i-stay-life-after-beth-movie-review/ "undefined")). Call it _The Fly in Our Stars_. Plus some of the work of Hill’s father, Stephen King. A long flashback of Ig, his brother Terry and their best friend Lou recalls the pubescent taunting and near-tragedies of _Stand by Me_, the movie made of King’s story “The Body.” A decade or so later, Terry (Joe Anderson) has sunk into alcoholism, perhaps to blur some guilty memory; and Lou (Max Minghella) has become Ig’s public defender. Lou’s fidelity to his defamed pal helps Ig notice a wrinkle in his Horns rulebook: people who believe he’s innocent can’t see them. Even the movie’s viewers, who can see the horns, know Ig isn’t turning into the Devil. Oh, sure, he’s able to make two burly cops change in a second from mildly bi-curious to lewdly bi-furious. He can summon snakes to do his bidding, and he’s handy with a pitchfork — Lucifer’s favorite farming tool. But Ig is also the most honest, decent fellow in town. He will use these odd abilities only to discover who killed his dear Merrin and to avenge her death. Indeed, if you read the movie’s prominently displayed car license plates (GEN138, 2036LUK, 2017 EXS) as Biblical references (Genesis 13:8, Luke 20:36, Exodus 10:17), you may believe that what compels Ig is not the cunning of Satan but the power of Christ. Aja, the French director who burst on the international horror scene with the effectively creepy two-girls-in-an-isolated-house thriller _High Tension_, came to America to helm remakes (_The Hills Have Eyes_, _Mirrors_) and sequels (_Piranha 3D_). _Horns_ aims higher, handing Aja the upmarket London-born actors Radcliffe, Minghella and Temple — all nicely attuned to the cramped gestures and speech patterns of the Pacific Northwest — and the illustrious cinematographer Frederick Elmes, who shot _Eraserhead_, [_Blue Velvet_](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,962355,00.html "undefined") and [_Wild at Heart_](http://www.davidlynch.de/wahtimecannes.html "undefined") for David Lynch and, recently, the four-hour drama [_Olive Kitteridge_](http://time.com/3266631/olive-kitteridge-hbo-miniseries-venice/ "undefined"), to be shown on HBO Nov. 2nd and 3rd. At nearly two hours, _Horns_ dawdles through the flashback and the politics of rural paranoia. It stumbles in turning Hill’s parable into a vivid movie experience. Anyone could imagine the better, cleaner, more coherent 90-min. film at the core of _Horns_: the one about the physics of apparent demonic possession. In a scene that references James Franco’s literal disarming in _127 Hours_, Ig tries to saw off his head-growths; he bursts into flame as if seared by the fires of Hell; and his army of reptiles slithers magnificently to embrace its prey. (Kudos to Brad McDonald, who in the credits is listed as “Head Animal Wrangler, Snakes.”) The power of Satan may not have engulfed Ig, but it keeps him alive. As he observes, in the movie year’s least necessary line of dialogue: “One thing I’ll say in my favor: I am f—in’ hard to kill.” The central horror elements are so much snazzier than the others in _Horns_ — those dealing with endless love, coming of age and the small minds of small-town folk — that you wonder why Aja retained them. Maybe the Devil made him do it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3548624/horns-daniel-radcliffe-movie-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3548624/horns-daniel-radcliffe-movie-review/"},"headline":"Review: Horns: Harry Potter Goes Just a Little Voldemort","datePublished":"2014-10-30T22:08:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T11:07:43.363Z","description":"Daniel Radcliffe looks like the Devil in this odd combination of horror film, social satire and YA love story","url":"https://time.com/3548624/horns-daniel-radcliffe-movie-review/","keywords":["movies","Stephen King","daniel radcliffe"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt240b50c28a2cb096/698763a7428a9ea5a9cc4d4f/horns.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Richard Corliss","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt240b50c28a2cb096/698763a7428a9ea5a9cc4d4f/horns.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Horns","caption":"Horns","creditText":"RADiUS-TWC","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3548624/horns-daniel-radcliffe-movie-review/","name":"Review: Horns: Harry Potter Goes Just a Little Voldemort"}}]}] ```