By: Andrew Wing

Lamb (Icelandic: Dyrio, lit. ‘The animal’) is a 2021 folk horror film directed by Valdimar Jóhannsson, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Sjón. An international co-production between Iceland, Sweden, and Poland, the film stars Noomi Rapace (Millenium series, Prometheus), and marks Valdimar Jóhannsson’s feature-length directorial debut. Rapace and Béla Tarr act as executive producers.

The film follows an Icelandic couple who live with their herd of sheep on a beautiful but remote farm when they discover a mysterious newborn on their land. But when they decide to keep it and raise it as their own, this unexpected development and the prospects of a new family which they thought would bring them much joy, turns into something else entirely.

After premiering at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, the film was released in Iceland on September 24, 2021. It was selected as the Icelandic entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards.

THE GOOD

I won’t lie, I thought I was done reviewing films from 2021, but once I saw that the Icelandic folk horror film Lamb was available to stream on Showtime, I just couldn’t resist. Also, it is an A24 film, and if you ask anyone that knows me, they will know that I live and die by A24. Being a true cinephile, I love all aspects and genres of film, and all of the A24 films carry an unexplainable vibe that definitely isn’t for most audiences, but I just eat it up. That said, the trailer for this was about as A24 as it could get, so I knew I had to check it out and eventually review it. So without further ado, let’s find out if this was another banger from A24, or if it was simply too weird and offputting to make for a quality film.

I’ll hold off on answering that for a bit, but just to start, I’ll say this movie is unlike anything I’ve seen before. I mean it didn’t take much considering the film follows a human/sheep hybrid with a mostly human body and a lamb’s head and right arm, but still, it was just so surreal. And I know I said I’d keep you waiting for a little, but I lied because to answer the question I posed, this is a high-quality film despite the wacky subject matter. And a big reason why it is was because of the director, Valdimar Jóhannsson, who had quite the feature-length directorial debut. Talk about going for it on your first movie, I mean this movie is so darkly imaginative. He brought to life this movie in a way that was so haunting and atmospheric, and I loved how he chose to have this be very slow-moving, and also extremely nutty in a way. All in all, Jóhannsson made a fan out of me, and I cannot wait to see what he does next.

Now Jóhannsson put this movie together in a way that not many other directors could have in his debut, but what took this movie from average to above-average was Noomi Rapace. For those who don’t know her, Rapace is a Swedish actress and she is a really big deal overseas. She is an amazing actress and she was actually the famous girl with the dragon tattoo before Rooney Mara was in David Fincher’s Americanized version. Nevertheless, Rapace showed why she is one of the top foreign actresses today by her performance as María in this. This story is bizarre, and the only way it would’ve worked was if the lead was totally bought in, and she was. It really felt like she had raised this creation her entire life and had a deep personal connection to it, and I was just blown away by what she did here. If there is one reason to watch this movie in the first place, it is her performance hands down.

There is no denying that Rapace took home the grand prize here, but the other two performances we got are from supporting actors Hilmir Snær Guõnason and Björn Hylnur Huraldsson. Guõnason’s character is the husband to María and it was incredible watching his character’s journey from beginning to end, and seeing how he came to love this creature was impressive. As for Huraldsson who I thought had the slightly better performance, well he plays the husband’s brother who apparently used to have a thing with María in the past. His performance was great and he really played the bad guy role so well. I also thought he looked so familiar and after doing some research, I found that he had a role in the Netflix fantasy series The Witcher that I watch which stars the man of steel himself, Henry Cavill.

In closing, I got to show some love to the top-notch technical side of things when it comes to Lamb. First, the cinematography we got here from Eli Arenson was phenomenal. Iceland is such an astonishingly beautiful country and I will never get tired of watching movies that take place there, and I just thought Arenson captured it in a way that helped the story dramatically. Also, the music like in all of the A24 films was fantastic and it made you feel uneasy in all the right spots. And lastly, it goes without saying that the VFX team absolutely crushed it here. They brought this human/sheep hybrid to life in a way that felt uncomfortably real and I probably will never look at lambs the same way again.

THE BAD

Alright, this is tough. If you’ve gotten this far into the review, you saw the poster, and you read the film’s premise, so you know what you are dealing with, and what you are dealing with is a very strange film. I’ve said it, and I’ll say it again but it is literally about a human/sheep hybrid. Like that is fucking weird, and if you can’t do weird movies, then this movie isn’t for you and I’d totally get it. I will say though, that if you like horror movies, good cinematography, and want to see some amazing acting performances, then you should just dive right into Lamb because you won’t regret it.

Now that that is out of the way, let’s get into some of the problems I had with the film. There weren’t many because it’s a high-quality film as I have said, but it isn’t flawless. First, as I do with all horror movies, I have to judge it by how much it scared me, and while it had a few scenes here and there, I just didn’t particularly find the film scary at all. Now I was uncomfortable, but that is different. It’s frustrating too because there was one scene about midway through that was pretty terrifying and I thought it was about to get batshit crazy, but it really didn’t and I think after seeing it that if it did, this movie could’ve gone from good to great.

The second and bigger problem I had with Lamb was the ending. I don’t know, by the time the final act rolled around I was highly invested and it felt like we were getting to the point where there was a price that needed to be paid, and while it was paid I guess, it just wasn’t in the way I had hoped. Maybe others will like how things wrap up, but I just felt it to be such an underwhelming conclusion to a film that had such a compelling start.

THE VERDICT

Despite the film’s bizarre premise and what I thought was an underwhelming conclusion, Lamb is a folk horror film that is haunting and unsettling. It is an interesting debut from director Valdimar Jóhannsson that has me eager to see what he does next, and it’s backed by amazingly bought-in performances from the cast, especially Noomi Rapace, and some stunning cinematography of Iceland.

It’s a tough film to recommend because it certainly isn’t for everyone, but I’d suggest keeping an open mind and checking it out because it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting and you can’t go wrong with A24.