Movie trailers follow a somewhat predictable formula, to the point where they are easily spoofed and replicated. So it’s a special treat when a trailer comes along that straight up breaks our brain. Enter Lamb, a folkloric Icelandic horror film starring Noomi Rapace (Prometheus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
The film, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and comes from A24, the company behind movies like Moonlight and Midsommar, follows María (Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snaer Gudnason). They have no children and live on a rural sheep farm, where they make a startling discovery one day in their sheep barn. The discovery? Some sort of sheep/human hybrid critter that the couple soon adopts as their own.
Director Valdimar Jóhannsson’s debut film creates a moody, atmospheric ambiance from the jump, fueled by an intense performance from Rapace. Equally intense? The threatening stares coming from the flock of sheep that don’t seem thrilled about a human couple raising one of their own. Sidebar, if this is Kramer vs. Kramer with sheep, I’m ALL IN.
Why is shit like this always a horror film? They look like they’re having a nice time! Make it a road trip film with this sweet baby lamb! https://t.co/hwzj5Rg97H
— Sophia Benoit (@1followernodad) July 28, 2021
The trailer pivots wildly between horror and comedy, including a bucolic moment in the field where Rapace makes a flower crown for her lamb baby and snuggles it as The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” plays. I’m firmly on Team Lamb here: after all, who doesn’t dream of frolicking in the fields with a lamb that wears little Nordic sweaters? Like, gorgeous natural scenery and bonding with a lamb baby? Inject that shit straight into my veins.
Lamb received similarly wild reviews out of Cannes. Variety reviewer Jessica Kiang described the film as “a slow-burn contemporary folk horror that beds a ludicrous central twist so deep in damp Icelandic austerity you can almost believe it.”
IndieWire’s Eric Kohn wrote “The premise of Lamb is hilarious in parts, but Jóhannsson isn’t kidding around. Even as his debut derives from recent “elevated horror” efforts, it funnels them into a concept that eventually works on its own terms; it’s both a complex metaphor as well as one helluva sight gag. If the starting point is, ‘What the fuck is this?,’ the answer is obvious: It’s Lamb.”
What exactly will this film be? A meditation on the nature of parenthood? A body horror about sheep people aka sheeple? An austere Nordic horror with shades of Midsommar? Twitter naturally has questions:
Florence Pugh’s Dani has been dethroned btw #LAMB @LambMovie pic.twitter.com/pfY2JUEp4m
— johan (@malaymango) July 27, 2021
this shot is driving me insane #LAMB pic.twitter.com/70NTfMcGGQ
— final boy (@a24papi) July 27, 2021
Me watching the trailer for #Lamb while glancing over at #A24 pic.twitter.com/CRg2B4d8pp
— Joshua Castaldo 🇮🇹🇺🇲 (@CastaldoFilms) July 27, 2021
Joining in on the Midsommar chorus. #Lamb pic.twitter.com/JU5heU77Ra
— B/R/A/D 📼 (@bradmiska) July 27, 2021
Awesome! Finally a big screen Lamb Chop movie! #Lamb https://t.co/evdp2J0xMj pic.twitter.com/WQtfsb9JHL
— Eric Jensen (@Lorderk) July 27, 2021
Of course, the question on everyone’s mind is the one that no one seems to be asking out loud. Did Ingvar fuck that sheep?!?
Lamb hits theaters on October 8.
(image: A24)
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