2013 Horns

• Directed by Alexandre Aja
• Written by Keith Bunin, Joe Hill
• Stars Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Max Minghella
• Run Time: 2 Hours. 
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg9GW3Krsi8

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

There’s a murder mystery, and a guy with the abilities to solve it. This one is a lot of fun, with dark humor, action, and romance. We never find out why these things are happening to Ig, the main guy, but it doesn’t really matter. Just go with it.

Spoilery Synopsis

Ig Parrish narrates about how in love he was with Merrin Williams. We cut to him waking up on the kitchen floor after drinking too much. He’s got an amazing record collection, and he thinks of her. There are dozens of reporters outside with protestors, “You will burn in Hell!” and other signs. He’s accused of killing Merrin. 

He drives to his parents’ house, and the reporters follow him. Parents Derrick and Lydia are there, along with his brother Terry. They talk about Lee Tourneau, Ig’s lawyers. He still denies having anything to do with her death. Lee shows up; the lab that was processing the evidence for the case has burned down mysteriously. 

It goes to the local bar and talks to Glenna, who clearly likes him. That night, there’s a candlelight vigil for Merrin. Dale, Merrin’s father, thanks them all for coming. He blames Ig for the murder, too. Ig gets drunk, smashes the shrine, and pees on it. He later complains that everyone in town, when they saw him, saw the face of the devil. 

As Ig wakes up the next day next to Glenna, he’s got some bloody bumps on his forehead. Even as he looks in the mirror, the horns grow longer, and yes, Glenna can see them too. She starts acting weird, and then she starts eating all the donuts– strangely.

He goes to the doctor about the horns. There’s a woman there who wants to kick her own screaming child, or maybe abandon her. She wants to leave her husband. She tells him all her secret immoral desires. The receptionist just wants to scream at the mother, and he gives her permission. It seems that everyone wants Ig’s permission to do bad things. The nurse also overshares. The doctor mentions that every time he looks away from the horns, he forgets that they’re there. 

The doctor sedates Ig before cutting off the horns, and Ig dreams of his childhood with his friends and how he met Merrin. It does a crazy, risky stunt– he rides down a log trough in a shopping cart and nearly dies. Lee, however, ends up losing several fingers in the process. Young Ig shows Merrin to his treehouse in the woods, and they’re followed by Terry. Years pass, and they’re still together. 

Ig wakes up at the doctor’s office, and he’s still got his horns. The doctor and the nurse both got distracted by sex in the middle of the operation. Ig drive to the church and to ask the priest what to do. The priest says he’d really like to just string Ig up and kill him. 

Ig goes to see Lee, but Lee doesn’t see the horns. “Maybe the horns don’t work on good people,” Ig wonders. He goes home to his mother, who sees the horns and wishes he’d gone somewhere else with his problems. She’s really tired of him making her feel bad. People just can’t help but to tell him the absolute truth. His father never doubted for a minute that Ig murdered Merrin; he had the lab burned down. 

Ig decides that maybe he can use his newfound “truth powers” to make the real killer confess. When the reporters get too close, he finds that he can do some pretty good “suggestions” as well. He goes to the bar and demands that anyone who knows anything about Merrin’s murder to speak up. He gets some random confessions and one guy who wants to expose his penis to the world. The bartender rants that he wants out and sets his own place on fire. 

We flash back to Ig buying a ring and going out with Merrin to a diner. Lee and Terry wonder if he’s not rushing into things. Merrin, on the other hand, says she’s moving to Los Angeles and they need to break up. She says she might be in love with someone else. They argue and split up just as Terry arrives. The next morning, the police arrest Ig for murdering Merrin. 

Ig goes to the diner and talks to Veronica the waitress, who admits lying to the police for attention. He then goes to the club where Terry is performing. Glenna admits she’s always had a crush on Ig, and she only stayed in town because of him. 

Terry, however, admits that Merrin left the diner with him, leading to another flashback. Terry and Merrin left the diner, but she got out of the car and left through the woods. He waited in the car until morning, when he found a bloody rock in his car. What did he do? He walked to the treehouse and found the body. Then he threw his bloody shirt and the rock in the river water and didn’t tell anyone. 

Terry still denies killing Merrin. The police show up and try to arrest Ig for fleeing the county. In the morning, Lee gets Ig out of jail again. Ig notices that Lee is wearing Merrin’s cross. Lee admits that he was the one Merrin wanted to run off with. 

Ig goes to see Dale, Merrin’s father. He doesn’t seem to see the horns either, but he freely admits that he’s still sure that Ig killed her. About this time, snakes start following Ig around. Ig tries to file down or break off the horns, but they’re really tough. He decides to use his new powers to find out the whole story. 

Ig returns to the diner and the lying waitress. She gets into her car, but so do a bunch of snakes. The snakes bite her repeatedly. He doesn’t get any new information, but a little revenge doesn’t hurt. He gets rid of the police using his power of suggestion, but with a lot less blood. Ig confronts Terry about not calling the police when he found the body; he never even tried to help Ig with the police. Ig tells him to take all his drugs, and he can’t help himself. Terry hallucinates all kinds of nasty things before he passes out. 

Ig calls Lee to meet him at the docks. They argue, and Ig pulls off Merrin’s cross. Now, Lee can see the horns. “I never meant to kill her.” When Ig grabs Lee, he gets a flashback to Lee and Merrin talking about her going away to California. We also see him follow Terry and Merrin in the car and then follow her into the woods. Lee started to kiss her, and she put up a fight. She had never been interested in Lee, but he’s been infatuated with her for years. He then beat her to death with a rock. 

In the present, Lee and Ig fight, and Lee gets the upper hand. “Love made devils of us both.” Lee puts Ig in his car and pours gasoline all over him. He then lights it up. Ig, on fire, drives off the dock into the water, and the car promptly sinks. 

Ig’s parents, in Terry’s hospital room, watch the police talk about Ig’s apparent suicide after he confessed murdering Merrin to Lee. His lawyer, Lee, was the only witness. However, we soon see Ig walking out of the ocean. His horns are longer, he’s charred, and his skin is now bright red. 

Ig stops by Dale’s house and tells him he knows who really killed Merrin. Ig offers Merrin’s cross to her father, but he gives it back. When Ig puts it on, he looks perfectly normal again.

Iggy goes back to the treehouse and finds a letter to him from Merrin, in Morse Code. She explains that she couldn’t marry him not because she didn’t love him but because she had terminal cancer. She didn’t want to put him through that. She only wanted him to hurt enough to break up, but she really wanted the best for him.

Ig goes to see Lee, who doesn’t remember his admission or even the fight from yesterday. Terry is there with the police; they know the truth now. Lee grabs the cops gun and kills him. Terry gets shot in the leg. Ig pulls off the cross, wanting his powers back, and he quickly gets them, fire and all. He’s the full-on Devil now. The Devil, by the way, is bullet resistant, which Lee soon learns. Lee still doesn’t stop, stabbing Ig with a pitchfork, which does some damage 

Lee looks around, and the snakes are everywhere. They crawl all over him and then… inside him. The Devil, on the other hand, is bleeding out from the pitchfork wound as Terry rushes over to help his brother. Ig dies. 

Ig and Merrin are together in paradise now… and forever. 

Brian’s Commentary

This was fun. The whole horns, snakes, and truth powers make it seem very much like Ig was guilty all along, but he still swears he didn’t do it. So what was all this for? It just gets weirder and weirder since we don’t actually know what’s going on. Even after the mystery is solved, we don’t get any explanation as to why Iggy got those weird powers. 

It’s good, but I have a lot of questions at the end, like… Why?

Kevin’s Commentary

This was a unique way to solve a murder mystery. Like Brian said, we don’t find out why Ig grew horns and developed powers. The only choice is to go with it and enjoy the movie. And enjoy it, I did. This was my second viewing, and I liked it even better this time around.