Horns

Merrin becomes just a shadow of its book counterpart, and not even Juno Temple can save it. Daniel Radcliffe proves that he is a capable actor who can easily rid himself of his British accent to truly give everything to the role. He is more than tolerable, and even though I thought he was a bad choice, I am ultimately satisfied. I am less satisfied with the excessive use of CGI effects and the fact that Alexandre Aja couldn't extract true horror from the book adaptation. (10/13/2014)

Absolute psycho that often goes way over the top, but I enjoyed it more than part 1. The fact that it’s a sequel is capitalized upon and so everything is bigger, more explosive and the humor even crazier. Miller and Lord thrive on knick-knacks, antiracism and also... on male comradery. Awesome final credits. (10/11/2014)

A reasonably faithful, but mostly good adaptation of the book. I was a bit worried about Daniel Radcliffe, but he was fine in the end and handled Ig in all situations, and I was also curious to see what the somewhat unbalanced Alexandre Aja would do for me. In the end I have to say that Horns has a very good atmosphere, it's entertaining and quite suspenseful... and if nothing else, it features Juno Temple, gorgeous as always. The only thing that disappointed me was the slightly off finale – even some TV series have better ones. But whatever. (04/19/2020)

Horns fails in most respects on issues of story structure, and the film also prompts questions even over such otherwise insignificant details as "What's it about again?" The fault is not with Aja – who does what he can and, above all, what he knows how to do (which is why the highlights of the film are always associated with trashy violence handled in a first-class way). However, in my groping through the screenwriting incoherence and indeed the omnipresent idiocy, I became convinced that the cause of the failure was none other than – colleague Joe Hill forgive me – colleague Joe Hill. He can change his name until he passes out, but even if he were Creole he still couldn't deny his inspiration in Father King. In particular, the setting of the story in a small town with multiple supporting characters, the childhood relationships carried into adulthood, and the satanic rebellion against a commune redolent with the church is straight out of King's opuses Needful Things and It. That being said, Aja, with the consistency of a fifteen-year-old pervert, dutifully waits the entire story for those scenes where you throw your feet back on the table, a mischievous grin appears on your face, your hand dives back into your chips or down the neckline of your companion, and you tell yourself that such a demented perversion hasn't actually come around for quite a while and you're happy. (10/19/2014)

Horns is a great creative trip that combine hardly combinable genre positions with ease, while even managing to make fun of their sacred clichés (the priest’s advice, gay cops). Alexandre Aja is not just a great horror director, but also a lover of dramatic stories with a romantic dimension who can skillfully juggle our favorite pulp genres. And this is his freshly original and hard to imitate wet dream, in which, by the way, Stephen King will also find something to make him happy. (03/30/2015)