Horns (2013)

Horns is a 2013 Canadian-American horror film directed by Alexander Ana. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple,Joe Anderson, Max Shellacking, James Remar, Kathleen Palanquin, Heather Graham and David Morse.

Plot
Ignatius "Ig" Parrish is the prime suspect when his girlfriend, Merlin, is raped and murdered. Despite his declarations of innocence, he is shunned by the community. He stays with his parents and brother, Terry, hiding from the press. After a vigil led by Merlin's father, who believes I to be guilty, I drinks heavily, urinates on Merlin's memorial, and wakes up with a pair of horns protruding from his head. While seeing his doctor about getting the horns removed, I, under anesthesia, dreams of his childhood, when he first met Merlin. A young I and his friends play with cherry bombs; I risks a dangerous dare to win a cherry bomb, and nearly drowns, but is saved by Lee, his childhood friend, and now-lawyer. He later trades the cherry bomb to Lee in exchange for fixing Merlin's broken necklace, and Lee loses two fingers when the cherry bomb goes off accidentally. I and Merlin bond over the fixed necklace and fall in love, frequenting a tree house in the woods together. It is revealed that I's horns force people to tell him their darkest secrets and desires, which, at I's bidding, they act upon. I visits his parents, but under the power of the horns, his mother reveals that she doesn't want him as her son, while his father tells him that he is worthless without Merlin and that a friend of his helped him burn down the lab where DNA tests were being conducted. I goes to a bar, where he goads the reporters into a brawl and attempts to find evidence that he didn't kill Merlin. Several people confess their deepest secrets, and the bartender burns down the building. From one of the confessions, I learns that a new witness in the case is a waitress at the diner where Merlin broke up with him the night she died. I finds her and discovers that she has been fabricating her stories to become famous. When I talks to Terry, he learns that Terry drove Merlin from the diner the night she died. When he touches Terry, I sees what happened that night: Merlin left the car en route to her home and ran into the woods; Terry passed out in the car, and woke up the next morning with a bloody rock in his hand, finding Merlin dead under the tree house. Afraid that he would be implicated, he fled. Infuriated, I assaults Terry until he is arrested by Eric Humanity, a police officer, and another childhood friend. The next morning I is released from jail with Lee's help. I notices Lee wearing Merlin's cross necklace and questions him about it; Lee insists that there are things about him and Merlin that I never knew. Later that night, I realizes that snakes are following him wherever he goes and uses them to exact vengeance against the waitress. He also gets Eric to act on his feelings for his police partner (who reciprocates his feelings) and forces Terry to overdose on drugs, causing Terry to be tormented by memories of Merlin's death. I meets Lee by the docks and pulls off Merlin's necklace; I realizes that Lee was unable to see I's horns because he was wearing Merlin's cross necklace. Exposed to the horns, Lee falls under their influence, admitting he killed Merlin. In flashbacks, it is shown that Lee was also in love with Merlin and was deeply jealous of I throughout their childhood. Lee followed Merlin into the woods, thinking that Merlin had been sending him signals for a long time and that she had broken up with I to be with him. When Merlin insisted that she loved I more than anyone in the world, Lee raped her in a jealous rage, then killed her with a rock, stole her necklace, and planted the bloody rock on Terry. In the ensuing confrontation, Lee overpowers him and lights him on fire in his car, causing I to drive into the bay. Lee claims that I confessed to the crime and committed suicide. The horns allow I to survive, horrifically burned and disfigured. Merlin's father, who now believes I innocent, gives I the key to Merlin's lock box. When I puts on Merlin's cross, his body is restored and his horns disappear. In the box, he finds a note from Merlin that explains that she knew he was going to propose, but she was dying from cancer and didn't want him to suffer, so she pushed him away under the pretense of loving someone else. I confronts Lee, who does not remember their earlier fight, and leads him into the woods where Merlin was killed. Eric and Terry arrive to arrest Lee. Lee confesses to the murder, but then gleefully kills Eric and injures Terry. I tears off the necklace, sprouting a pair of wings and bursting into flame, transforming into a demonic monster. Despite Lee mortally wounding him, I impales Lee on one of his horns and telepathically forces a snake down Lee's throat, killing him. Saying that his vengeance was all-consuming, I dies from his injuries and his smoldering corpse turns to hardened ash, and he appears to be reunited with Merlin in the afterlife.

Cast

 * Daniel Radcliffe as Ignatius "I" Parrish
 * Mitchell Acumen as Young I
 * Max Shellacking as Lee Tourney
 * Dylan Schmidt as Young Lee
 * Joe Anderson as Terry Parrish
 * Jared Alger-Foster as Young Terry
 * Juno Temple as Merlin Williams
 * Sabrina Carpenter as Young Merlin
 * Kelli Garner as Glenna
 * Lane McNeil as Young Glenda
 * James Remar as Derrick Parrish
 * Kathleen Palanquin as Lydia Parrish
 * Heather Graham as Veronica, The Waitress
 * David Morse as Dale Williams
 * Alex Sahara as Dr. Ronald