The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) - Review

I just want to start this review by saying this is one of those films that I watch once, stew on it for a while and then decide to never watch again so please, forgive me if I end up missing something because I don't want to put myself through this film ever again.

The story follows a pretty wealthy family with Dr. Steven Murphy being surrounded in his home with his wife Anna and two young children when during one of his shifts at the hospital, he meets a young man named Martin who has some issues going on with attachments and with his mother so Steven often meets up with him to chat for a while before he heads home. This all begins to turn a bit obsessive when Martin is invited over to the Murphy's house, bonds with the kids and tries to assimilate with the family. It gets pretty messed up from there with some light threats, paralyzing, psychological warfare, and human sacrifice. Yeah nothin crazy going on here whatsoever but damn I'm sad after watching it.

A24 distributed the film and Yorgos Lanthimos directs the film with his odd horror/unusal style of things but in a strangely grounded reality. You may know his most popular film Poor Things (2023) and the utter craziness that is that film so as someone who saw Poor Things before this and went into The Killing of a Sacred Deer knowing Lanthimos directed it, it's like getting whiplash with how normal and grounded this story is compared to Poor Things and I know that it's completey different writing and topics but still, directors like Lanthimos has a style and tend to stick to it but my god, this is some crazy shift that I wasn't ready for.

This films stars Colin Farell, Barry Keoghan, Nicole Kidman, and Sunny Suljic (of the God of War games). I love the cast of this film a lot, they all bring their all to this insane film that's a 2 hour long psychological nightmare and I applaud them because the cast and the concept really carry this film. I think Colin Farell should be in wayyyyy more horror and scary movies in all honesty because there's this period drama I love called The Beguiled (2017) - that coincidentally also stars Nicole Kidman too - and his performance int hat film is Lowey terrifying and unhinged and that mans got some talent let me tell ya. Personally I don't love Nicole Kidman since she typically plays the same type of character just in slightly different situations so I find it pretty boring to watch her in loads of movies but she plays that type of character well. You know the kind but slightly unhinged wife/mother who slowly finds that her life's unraveling, but she does it well in this film but my favorite performance of hers was in Babygirl (2024). Barry Keoghan often just scares me in any context so I think he kills it here - no pun intended - and to be honest, I don't think he's even acting at all in this film as this psychotic teenager.

There isn't a ton I can spoil about this film because in all honesty I feel like it goes from 0-10 realllll fast towards the end so I'll do a quick spoiler section but it'll probably be less than one paragraph if that says anything. This film is good, I like the concept and how utterly poetic and tragic it is, the cast is great but that's it. It really kind of a "What the hell was that?" movie and that's part of the reason I will never be watching it again. That and I know what happens at the end and it's one of those films that's not totally great the more times you watch it since the mystery and chaos is already known to you.

I will say that this film does deal with some heavy mental health and family dynamic ideas and suggestions that may be triggering or worry some for a few people so please just know that before you decide to watch it.

I'm going to go into a few spoilers so be warned if you scroll further down.

A24'S's distribution poster for The Killing of a Sacrede Deer (2017)

So the mentally disturbed teenager slowly tries to unravel Steven's family because the teenager is jealous of it and if he can't have it, no ones gonna get it. But my question is, where in the holy hell did he get lethal doses of paralyzing medications? He slowly injects the kids with them rendering them pretty much paralyzed from the waist down and then torments poor freaking Steven who had to operate on his kids, take care of them and watch them slowly suffer, and makes him kill one of his family members to save the rest. How and why? Why? I don't get that but the concept is poetic and tragic and I like the use of tension in the final scene and throughout the film but like why?

I think if you like psychological horror or dramas with thriller aspects to them, you'll enjoy this film and if you do, tell me why in the comments because I'm curious as to who enjoys this film? Not saying its a bad film or poorly made because it most certainly isn't either of those but its such a downer and I know that horror movies typically aren't cheery and happy but c'mon man this story is just depressing from start to finish.

That's why I give The Killing of a Sacred Deer a 5/10