“The boy who lived” finally went to hell in Daniel Radcliffe’s 2013 role as Ig in the new-to-Netflix fantasy horror, “Horns.” Ig Perrish and Merrin Williams are everyone’s favorite star-crossed couple, until Merrin is found dead one morning and Ig is the prime suspect. In the wake of Merrin’s murder, Ig falls prey to his desire and winds up sleeping with his childhood friend, Glenna Shepherd (Kelli Garner). The following morning, he wakes up to find horns growing from his forehead. 

Directed by Alexandre Aja (“High Tension,” “Piranha 3D”), “Horns” was adapted from a novel by Joe Hill and portrays Ig as a fallen angel seeking redemption by bringing out the worst in people. The horns seem to affect everyone Ig comes into contact with, except for his lawyer and best friend, Lee (Max Minghella).

The film starts out with the same mind-bendingly dark psychological elements as landmark classics like “Donnie Darko” and “Clockwork Orange.” Unfortunately, all hope for this film is squashed by Aja’s favoritism of cliché horror gimmicks over the visually mouthwatering cinematography and potentially thought-provoking narrative. The film quickly devolves into a very run of the mill monster-thriller. 

Aja also directed the most recent adaptation of the 1977 classic, “The Hills Have Eyes,” as well as “Mirrors,” and is known for his heavy involvement in the horror genre. The typical pop-out horror plot is predictably shallow and relies heavily on scare tactics; and clearly, Aja took a similar approach in the direction of “Horns.” He left no room for creative liberty as the overbearing religious imagery remained the primary focus throughout. 

For a dark, horror-comedy, especially one starring Daniel Radcliffe, “Horns” had the potential to be a dementedly mind-twisting crossbreed between the morally repugnant “The Reader” and the downright mentally traumatic “The Shining;” but it’s lack of political depth is what truly prevented the film from making my watch list. The overdone boy-hates-God storyline may have been given a CGI makeover, but the narrative was still disappointing at best.

Aja was not equipped enough to handle directing a storyline with as many layers as that of “Horns.” I would much rather have seen a more experienced director with a knack for dark, psychological subtleties like Quentin Tarantino or Stanley Kubrick take on such a feat. Throughout the movie, a number of underlying implications about Merrin, Ig, their relationship, Ig’s relationships with others and Merrin’s relationship with God were all persistently shoved down the viewer’s throat. As a result, I found the movie to be predictable beyond belief and was thoroughly disappointed.

The only redeeming factor was the visual style and cinematography. Shot by Frederick Elmes (“Blue Velvet,” “Wild at Heart”), “Horns” is carried by its captivating camera angles and seamless visual effects. The steady transformation that Ig undergoes as he grows into his new headgear is made staggeringly realistic by mind-boggling special effects. 

To a lesser degree, the longer exposure shots and less dramatic camera angles used in filming the flashback scenes mirror the whimsical, nostalgic feel of Ig and Merrin’s childhood. Contrast this with the darkly lit, extreme angles of Ig’s present purgatory and the viewer is confronted with the loss of innocence that necessarily bridged the two worlds. What serves as the icing on the cake is the seemingly backlit, ethereal nature shots throughout the film that unambiguously nod to the garden of Eden.

Judging solely on visuals, this movie is devilishly eye-catching, but in terms of narrative structure, Alexandre Aja fell flat. Radcliffe finally seemed ready to leave his wizarding days behind, trade in his wand for a pitchfork and pass through the world of the dark comedy, into the psycho-thriller genre. Unfortunately, “Horns” proved to be not a platform for success, but a sinking ship.