Movie Review: 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' is unsettling, addicting

A24

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Ireland/U.K., English, Color, 121 minutes) Leading "The Killing of a Sacred Deer" are Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman as the well-off married doctors who live in a pristine house with two beautiful kids. The family's stringent aura is broken by a teenager named Martin (played by Barry Keoghan), a young man who wants revenge after his dad died on Farrell's watch a few years prior. Who's to blame for the death? It's not clear. No matter, Martin will start to manipulate and taunt the family until they're on the verge of killing each other.

In an about-face from his raucously dark "The Lobster", Yorgos Lanthimos delves deeply into our own ethical and moral standards with this unsettling psychodrama. It's a stray from the warped settings of "Dogtooth" and "The Lobster" with a more precise, normal sense of place... and that makes this movie that much scarier. Nothing is scarier than realizing evil lurks in a place that could be our own community.

What can be more disturbing than to live a normal life and have someone throw it into a spiraling descent into madness? It's something we've seen time and time again, but "The Killing..." kicked it up a notch with a great cast that performed with such apathy and blandness. The sterilized, monotonous existence of all of the characters shook me. How can people who are so flat be so terrifying? Well, it's because there's no emotion in their delivery and everything that is said seems is actually jarring because there's not emphasis behind most of it. Threats are made with no emotion behind it, as if they're made just as effortlessly as reciting the ABC's. 

Even though I said the cast is pretty dry and bland, it was eerily appropriate. There is one scene in particular between Kidman and Keoghan where it's a closeup of Kidman as her eyes intensely pierce her scene mate as she listens to a story. Until this point she has not raised her voice, but her eyes spoke volumes with enough rage and hate that she could have literally killed Keoghan. Moments later she looks psychotic as she rips into Farrell in the kitchen. 

What is great about these "doorstep predator" movies is watching how people unfold and deteriorate; How uncomfortable your existence becomes when something breaks it apart. Don't expect anything flashy here. It's a barebones film whose aesthetic adds to the terror that slowly emerges from the ideal of perfection we wanted for ourselves and families. 

Rating: B+