A fable-like horror mystery with strong comic and romantic tendencies, Alexandre Aja's Horns draws on source material by cult scribe (and son of Stephen King) Joe Hill to deliver something much more beguiling than the straighter genre fare (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes) that made his name.

It's like a supernatural version of "Gone Girl," and yet, there is some very, very dark comedy in the film as well, and by keeping it dark instead of letting the humor undercut the severity of the situation, Aja has made what has to be his most commercial film so far.

Predominantly a failure of tone, Horns has plenty of admirable traits and yet dooms itself from the outset. It's an admirable conceit stuffed into far less subtle material.

[Aja] has outfitted Horns with enough talent that the film is rather easy to admire aesthetically. The problems are more foundational, even conceptual—and they are thus harder to reconcile.

This overly devout adaptation of Joe Hill’s sacrilegious text benefits from the helmer’s twisted sensibility, but suffers from a case of overall silliness.