Horns

Saw Horns (thanks, Basil!) It was a sort of metaphysically inclined mystery about a man whose fiance is killed. Everyone thinks he did it, but he swears he's innocent. One morning he awakes to find horns growing from his head. People kind of non-react to these horns, a doctor flatly proclaiming that he forgets the protagonist has them whenever he looks away. This probably worked a bit better in the film's source material (a Stephen King novel) but this is a minor but necessary misstep. Anyway, people begin asking the protagonist for permission to act on dark impulses and the protagonist finds that people generally follow his directions, so there's clearly some Christian-flavored magic afoot.

The film has a strange sort of attitude towards the magical powers the protagonist gets. The devil, here, is not so much an abstract or even all-powerful being, but more like some kind of super hero with vaguely defined but very limited powers. He's stronger now and can kind of control people's minds but he cannot, for example, stand up to too many punches. I think if I were younger I would be annoyed at this lack of sharp definitions (is he a demon now? Is he under a curse of some kind?) but in my old age I can handle the ambiguity fairly well.

The film is very stylishly shot and decorated, using a northern kind of hipster chic. They live in a logging village but everyone dresses in very clean flannel jackets and sport carefully-cultivated stubble. The outdoorsy, hipsterish look usually signifies honesty and sincerity in a film to me, and it's unusual to see it used here in what is essentially a special-effects-driven film. Early in the film, when we're seeing the Stand By Me-lite of the protagonist and his childhood buddies, it makes more sense.

The film is interesting. The protagonist is unfortunately played by Harry Potter, so it's sometimes jarring to hear his American accent or to see him, red-eyed and self-destructive, gulp down shots of booze. If you can ignore that however, it's a compelling small-town mystery with some neat special effects and supernatural window-dressing.