Horns.

A strange movie, one that is not sure if it's a fantasy, a horror or a comedy film but one I would personally describe as a love story masquerading as a horror story.  Horns (2012) stars Daniel Radcliffe as Ig Perrish a DJ in a New Hampshire town who is suspected of raping and killing his girlfriend but although the townsfolk and the media believe his is guilty it has never been proved. After a night of heavy drinking during which he urinates on his dead girlfriends memorial Perrish wakes up to find he has grown a pair of horns as well as inheriting the power of the devil! Strangers as well as close family members and friends approach him and confess their sins in a most explicit manner and seek permission to commit various other rather dodgy, normally sexual, deeds. It's from this action that the comedy flows, which to be fair is very funny at times. But Ig soon realises that with this power he could find the real culprit and clear his name.

 

The always provocative Juno Temple.

Adapted by Keith Bunin the script is based on a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Stephan King's son Joe Hill, which itself incorporates elements of contemporary fantasy, crime and Gothic fiction and a book that Bunin admitted was a difficult story to adapt. Directed by Frenchman Alexandre Aja, who was responsible for the 2003 slasher movie Haute Tension, it consists of a very good ensemble cast, which it needed to persuade us that the narrative is not complete and utter nonsense and to a great extent they succeed. One of Movie Rambles favourite young actresses Juno Temple plays Merrin Williams the murdered girlfriend and it is the romance between the two leads that give’s the film it's heart. The late Anthony Minghella's son Max[1] plays Ig's best friend who he has known from their earliest school days,.  Although very well acted by Radcliffe I can never quite believe that he has left Hogwarts? The use of real snakes was a bit freaky!  An inventive movie presenting something different, which is always commendable in the days of bland mainstream cinema.

Daniel Radcliffe with his horns!

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[1] You may remember Max Minghella had a part in the dreadful The Social Network (2010) and also appeared in the George Clooney directed political drama The Ides Of March (2011)