The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a 2017 psychological horror thriller film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos co-written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou and starring Colin Farrell Nicole Kidman Barry Keoghan Raffey Cassidy Sunny Suljic and Alicia Silverstone. The plot follows a successful heart surgeon (Farrell) who attempts to integrate a teenage boy (Keoghan) into his family after the boy’s father (also played by Farrell) dies.
The film’s title refers to the Greek myth of Iphigenia in which Agamemnon leader of the Greek army must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease the goddess Artemis and allow his troops to sail for Troy. In the myth Artemis accepts a deer in Iphigenia’s place thus “killing” the sacred animal.
Lanthimos has said that the film is about “parenting and what it means to be a good parent or a bad parent.” He has also said that the film is about “control or the lack of control that we have over our children and also about the things that we try to control in our lives and how that can sometimes be detrimental.”
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22 2017 and was released in the United States on October 20 2017 by A24.
The film received generally positive reviews from critics with many praising its direction screenplay cinematography and performances (particularly those of Farrell and Keoghan). At the 70th British Academy Film Awards the film was nominated for four awards winning Best Film Not in the English Language.
The film opens with a scene of a family enjoying a meal together. We then see the father Steven (Farrell) performing surgery. Afterwards he goes to visit a teenage boy Martin (Keoghan) in the hospital. Steven tells Martin that his father died and that he wants to help him.
Martin asks Steven to come over to his house and Steven agrees. At Martin’s house Steven meets Martin’s mother Anna (Kidman) and his younger sister Kim (Cassidy). Martin tells Steven that he wants him to be his new dad.
Steven is initially hesitant but he eventually agrees to try to be a father to Martin. However things start to go wrong when Steven’s wife Anna refuses to let Martin into their home.
Steven then starts to have nightmares in which he sees Martin murdering his family. These nightmares become reality when one night Martin comes into the family’s home and starts killing them.
First he murders Kim by paralyzing her and then slit her throat. Then he does the same thing to Anna. Lastly he paralyzes Steven and tells him that he must kill one of his own children in order to save the lives of his wife and daughter.
Steven is unable to bring himself to kill his own child and so Martin kills his daughter Daisy (Suljic) instead. Afterwards Steven finally agrees to kill his son Bob (played by Sunny Suljic) in order to save the lives of his wife and daughter.
The film ends with Steven Anna and Martin sitting at the dinner table together eating the meal that was prepared earlier in the film.
How were they paralyzed?
Answer: By a sacred deer.
