Unicorns have been trendy in cinema for some time now — from canonical depictions in Ridley Scott’s Legend and The Last Unicorn to a bloodthirsty creature in Cabin in the Woods and Death of a Unicornthat just hit the theaters. That wasn’t always the case though. There was a time when there were barely any depictions of unicorns in film, but they fit right in with the favorite style of the ’70s genre cinema — surrealism. Black Moon, a dark, absurdist horror film helmed by famed French auteur Louis Malle, is a great, if slightly forgotten, example of this brand of ’70s surrealism. The script was co-written by Malle and Joyce Buñuel, a filmmaker who at the time was married to one of the sons of Luis Buñuel — the king of surrealist cinema. Malle’s film is filled with wild imagery that serves a point, talking about the experience of womanhood in a hostile world and exploring topics similar to modern surrealist films, such as Men and The Substance. And as promised, there’s a unicorn too.
