Hot on the heels of Pig being held out as Nic Cage’s most critically acclaimed movie (which is saying something, after the Coen Brothers and the whole Oscar thing, etc.) of all time, A24 (which also brought us First Cow) has another horror-barn-burner for you: Lamb. The film recently premiered at Cannes, and director Valdimar Jóhannsson (making his feature debut here) appears to go heavy on the steeped-in-folklore note here. Don’t mess with nature, y’all. It will come back to you with glowing eyes.
Noomi Rapace stars here as one half of a childfree couple in Iceland, and the pair discovers something along the lines of Sweet Tooth (a child that’s, uh, not entirely a human child), only this doesn’t seem to be a miracle at all, despite the cheery music playing in the background, and the steady drip of dread here is exactly what one expects from A24. Those undercurrents should strike an unsettling chord for those who’ve already seen countless nefarious horror kids, let alone a fur-baby like this one. The obsessive motherhood theme, too, and the fertility motif, all of it whips up into a heady brew with triggered livestock waiting in the wings.
Previously, an international teaser for this film kept a lot of what’s happening here under wraps (as far as a big physical reveal goes), but this trailer lets loose a bit more while cranking the sense of dread up to eleven. We get a better look at the “child” and the consequences that nature might unleash before all is said and done. I’m gonna go hug my dog-child now, and close my eyes until Lamb arrives in limited theaters on October 8.