Normally Halloween time means a new Blumhouse movie, or a new Michael Myers movie. But for the arthouse fans, Haloween time also means a new A24 horror movie: in the past, that means stuff like Hereditary, or The Witch. Lamb happily fits right into A24’s growing spooks resume, as well as their desire to make every animal as ominous as possible.
Noomi Rapace gets back to her Scandanavian-ish roots as Maria, an Icelandic woman married to Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason). The couple is mostly going through the motions of their day to day lives, raising sheep on their isolated farm. Things change when one of their lambs gives birth to…well, something different, named Ada. Maria instantly lets treats Ada like one of her own kids, with Ingvar on board. Their comfortable little quiet strange life is threatened by Ingvar’s brother Petur (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson), who shows up unannounced and is bewildered by Ada, maybe even pretty fearful of her.
Like all of its A24 predecessors, Lamb’s power lies in its ability to be pretty unnerving for most of its running time. Director Valdimar Jóhannsson goes for a lot of square framed camera shots like he’s taking a picture, and slowly zooming away from the image he’s zoomed in on. It’s a lot of quiet stillness, letting the animals or characters quietly go about their activities. You know what eventually freaks you out? A periodic baa’ing by a sheep with a camera fixated on it. This is a squirm in your chair film, as you fidget to try to make yourself comfortable when what you’re watching simply isn’t but in a compelling way.
All the unnatural images Johannsson creates become less creepy as we spend more time with them, which start turning Lamb from an eerie tone into something…dare I say lighter? The movie flirts with a world where Petur, Ingvar, Maria and Ada can be this warped twisted little family. Maria, who’s been a shell of a person, starts to shed those emotional barriers she put up years ago. And yet, there’s that little part of you that knows there’s too many unresolved issues to keep this flimsy happiness from collapsing. And that mountain fog starts to get thick again…
Lamb is not really that gory or traditionally frightening. However, if you have anxiety issues, Lamb is going to seep into your skin and discomfort you for just under 2 hours. For you Noomi Rapace fans, maybe you’ll see this as Lisbeth Salander’s origin story: Maria got sick of farm life so she moved into Stockholm and took up computer hacking.