March 28, 2025

I got a text earlier this morning from my former roommate Brendan Paterson asking me about the new A24 movie DEATH OF A UNICORN. (You can read my thoughts on the movie itself right here.) At first, it took me a few minutes to catch on to the point he was trying to make. It just went over my head. But finally, he forwarded a clip over and said, “didn’t you guys already make this as a short film back in 2012?”

Well, I’ll be darned, he’s right! Around that era, I was producing a bunch of short films with writer / director Drew Daywalt. Drew was already a seasoned filmmaker and had found viral success with his short film BEDFELLOWS. But he also looked at the exercise of making shorts as the equivalent to a weekly poker game. Instead of playing cards, why don’t we just get together and execute a horror idea? This one was definitely intended as a comedy from the get-to, so we recruited our good friends AJ Bowen and Ed Ackerman, both of whom appeared in HATCHET 2 together.

So, in honor of this weekend’s A24 release, DEATH OF A UNICORN, I proudly present to you our little comedic take on the unicorn mythos!

And as an added bonus, I dug deep into my archives and pulled out all these behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot, which I believe took place on April 6th, 2012. Enjoy!