Horrorfest 2021: Lamb

Lamb (2021)
Written by Sjon and Valdimar Johannsson
Directed by Valdimar Johannsson
Starring Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snaer Guonason, Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson and Ingvar Eggert Sigurosson
Iceland/Sweden/Poland

When I first saw this trailer, I thought, “Well, A24 has done it – they have officially made the most A24-ish movie ever.” You know A24, right? That indie distributor/studio that has churned out a bunch of creepy-but-artsy horror flicks over the last several years? They’re usually pretty good but also leave a lot of people walking away going, “Hey, the trailer was creepy, but nothing happened.”

This one pushed the limits, for me. Normally I am not one of the ones who leaves the theater claiming nothing happened. Usually the creepy tone is enough for me. This time, I still admired the film, but for the first time, I sort of identified with moviegoers who might feel tricked.

This is the tale of a sullen couple on a farm on Iceland who witness a seeming miracle on Christmas – a lamb is born, but from the looks on their faces, we can tell it is not a normal lamb. And, the way they take care of it, we start to suspect it’s part human. And eventually we find out – it is.

Now, my first thought was that the big surprise is going to be that the male half of the couple has been sleeping with sheep. Guess what? That is NOT the big surprise. In fact, there isn’t really any big surprise. I mean, something crazy happens at the end, but I wouldn’t call it a twist or surprise. Just… a thing that happens.

Most of the bulk of the middle part of the movie is taken up with a  love triangle as the husband’s brother arrives and tries to seduce the wife. At first you think, okay, this guy’s going to freak out about the lamb-human, but he takes to it pretty quickly. So, what could have been a plot about an outsider coming in and shaking things up for this cobbled-together family turns into… nothing?

We do eventually learn the reason this couple is so brooding and morose and seemingly detached from each other (at first) is because they recently lost a kid. Okay, so that explains why they take to this lamb-kid so quickly. But… what else?

Nothing else, I guess. There’s a little drama when the lamb’s sheep-mom keeps standing around bleating outside the nursery window, and it is a good sequence when the human-mom takes the sheep-mom out to the pasture and kills it. But then nothing comes of that, either.

So what are we left with? The premise is crazy, which I appreciate. The movie is beautiful to look at. The performances are all great. The tone and pacing are spot on. It’s just the story that’s missing. And that doesn’t always bother me. But this time it did, a little.