Horns

  Once upon a time, the son of the King of horror published two great books, one right after the other (in addition to a killer set of short stories). One of them was an incredibly cinematic yarn, ready made with iconic J-Horror-style imagery. The other one was a bizarre romance/horror/comedy hybrid that seemed designed to drive any foolish scriptwriter who took it on insane for their troubles.

 Guess which got a movie adaptation?

 To be fair, there's still hope that we'll see Heart-Shaped Box in one form or another; Neil Jordan wrote an adaptation and almost got it made way back in 2007, maybe he'll be able to rescue it from limbo at some point... or someone else will. It seems inevitable now people can put "From the author of Black Phone" on the movie poster.

 You know what they probably won't put in the poster? Joe Hill's previous big screen adaptation: 2013's Horns, which to be perfectly honest, is not a bad stab at filming a pretty unconventional novel. I'd avoided it for ages on the back of some bad reviews, despite liking most of director Alexandre Aja's movies. And now I've seen it... yeah, I get it, it's not great - definitely not a patch on the book - but it's still pretty good a lot of the time.

 The first line of the movie: "Are you horny?" Is indicative of one of the film's main problems, which is a sort of flippant, low-effort smart-arse-ness going on on the script that doesn't really work. It's uttered by Merrin Williams (Juno Temple), who's been going out with Ig Perrin (Daniel Radcliffe) ever since they were in grade school, as they lay side-by-side in a sunny patch of woodland. Then comes the film's best moment: The camera pans downwards from this idyllic scene, through the ground, and comes out the other side with an inverted, bleak-as-hell shot of Ig passed out in alcoholic stupor on his kitchen floor.

 On the nose? Sure, but it's also a phenomenal - and fun! - bit of visual storytelling.

 Merrin is dead - found raped and murdered in (presumably) the same stretch of woods we saw her in with Ig earlier. Ig is the prime suspect, but the ongoing investigation has stalled, even if everyone - including the police - have condemned him in their minds.

 Ig's life is, understandably, in a downward spiral. And soon it takes a turn for the weird when horns start sprouting from his head.

 Not that people pay attention to them; They can see them, but somehow they find them hard to remember or get worked up about; No, the main effect they have is to get people to confess to their darkest urges. To bring them to the fore. This leads to some pretty effective, if broad, black comedy as Ig acts as a sort of unknowing advocate for people to indulge in their base impulses. Similar to a superhero learning to use their powers, but with more public sex.

 It doesn't take long before Ig starts using his newfound abilities to try and find Merrin's killer. The whodunnit aspect is undone by a fairly weak villain and a beyond terrible, rote resolution, but the film does have a fair amount of fun getting there.

 French madman Alexandre Aja directs from a script by Keith Bunin. Aja fails in the predictable ways - he's more attuned to creating mayhem than character work, but his sensibility does give the film a bit of a kick, and he's more than happy to make the film pretty... well, horny, including an athletic sex scene. Remember when films had sex scenes?

 The tone, which was always going to be tricky, given the source material, is all over the place, but there's a definite attempt to drown out the black comedy as the film heads to darker places. It doesn't completely work, but it's reasonably well handled - and it's a very pacey movie even at two hours.

 I'm not a fan of a couple of attempts to paint Ig as an avenging, uh, angel, which feel a bit extraneous and out of character for both Ig and the movie, and as mentioned before the ending is a complete misfire. I suspect the movie would be much better remembered if they had found a better way to cap things off.

 The acting is mostly good. Radcliffe makes for a surprisingly compelling put-upon weirdo, and is pretty convincing as an American (though I should probably say that, as a non-native English speaker, my ear for accents is pretty iffy). There's also a handful of old pros giving the film a bit of class (Kathleen Quinlan, James Remar and David Morse), an extremely fun turn from Heather Graham, and a very likeable one for Joe Anderson as Ig's big brother. I did have some big issues with one of the roles, but I'll skip that because it'd edge into spoiler territory.

 Effects-wise it's mostly ok, though the main fireworks come out during the film's weakest moment. Aja wisely reins back his bloodlust, and the handful of gore shots are well made and are appropriately upsetting when they need to be. The cinematography (from Frederick Elmes) is good - all chilly Northeastern ambiance - and there's a couple of fun shots throughout the movie (none as good as that opening).

 The elephant in the room is the novel, which... well, yeah, it towers above the movie in pretty much any aspect you can think about. It's a complex one, so that was always going to be the case. Besides the loss of its more literary qualities, my main issues are that two important characters - Merrin and the killer - have been cut down in ways that do a huge disservice to the story, and the necessities of a Hollywood movie shift the story focus more to the whodunnit and revenge aspects, which were relatively minor in the book and result in a pretty unsatisfying conclusion to the story. Especially when it's all "Revenge is bad, OK?" and then it still tacks on the book's more upbeat ending in a way that feels completely unearned.

 Then again, book=good / movie=not-as-good is hardly news. It's still decent fun: funny, off-kilter, well-made and interesting - even if it's not in any way essential like the book is.