Horns

Ig Perrish is the prime suspect after his girlfriend Merrin Williams is brutally raped and murdered in their small Pacific Northwest town. Shunned, hounded by reporters, and broken by grief, he gets blackout drunk one night and wakes with two horn buds pushing out of his temples.

The horns have a sinister gift. Anyone in Ig's presence is compelled to confess their darkest desires and act on the worst urges he gives them permission to indulge. His doctor admits to fantasizing about leaving his family. His mother tells him she wishes he weren't her son. Snakes are inexplicably drawn to him wherever he goes.

Ig uses the horns to interrogate everyone connected to Merrin's death. Through flashbacks we see how they met as children at church — saved that day by Ig's best friend Lee Tourneau, now a lawyer — and grew up in love, until Merrin abruptly broke up with him at a diner the night she died. Lee, mysteriously, seems immune to the horns: a small gold cross around his neck blocks their effect.

Ig finally extracts the truth. Lee killed Merrin. He had run into her at the diner that night, distraught — she had ended things with Ig because she had a terminal cancer diagnosis and didn't want him to watch her die. Lee offered her a ride, tried to force himself on her, and when she fought back he beat her to death with a rock in the woods.

At the treehouse where Ig and Merrin spent their happiest hours, Ig fully transforms into a horned, fire-wreathed demon. He summons a swarm of snakes that engulf Lee, who is consumed by flame. Mortally wounded, Ig dies clutching Merrin's pendant — and is reunited with her spirit.