Lamb (2021)

Directed by Valdimar Jóhannsson

One of the first Icelandic horror movies I’ve seen, Lamb came stateside courtesy of A24, every film nerd’s favorite artsy film producers. I’ve been looking forward to Lamb for a long time, its trailer was phenomenal with a premise that tickled my body horror loving heart; on a farm in Iceland a couple finds that one of their sheep has given birth to an odd creature, a baby with the head of a lamb but the body of a human child. Because of the weird state of theaters right now, and how busy I am generally, I almost wasn’t able to see this in a theater, but luckily I managed to sneak in at the last moment and see it before it went streaming. My experience was unfortunately a tad bittersweet though. I was happy I got to see it in the theater, but this is the first A24 movie that left me kind of disappointed.

That’s not to say Lamb is a bad movie. There’s a lot about it that works, good cinematography, great performances from the leads, Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason, a great premise, and an ending that I liked the concept of quite a lot. Lamb plays much more like a modern fantasy film with a dark edge than a horror movie, and while I appreciate the courage it takes to make a non-standard modern fantasy, Lamb was 100% marketed as a horror movie. There is a lot of atmosphere present and Lamb does make for a mesmerizing and kind of spooky viewing, but not nearly enough happens for my taste. If you’re really into other A24 releases then you may get more out of Lamb than I did, but most others probably won’t get too much out of Lamb. This is coming to VoD soon but if anything I said above makes you iffy then give it a pass or wait for it to hit a streaming service you’re already subscribed to.