'Lamb' film review: Maria had a little lamb ... and raised it as a human
A childless couple raise a baby with a human body and the head of a barnyard animal in the dramatic horror 'Lamb' (opening in theaters Oct. 8).
In short: Icelandic farmers María and Ingvar (Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason) discover a mysterious newborn on their remote farm.
Sometimes it's unfair to say "nothing happens" when describing a plodding film - but the accusation of tedious tone establishment could be fairly summed up as "almost nothing happens" in the first 20 minutes of 'Lamb.' Nearly 10 minutes passes before a single line of dialogue is uttered. The audience is subjected to the boring monotony of Maria and Ingvar's daily routine: doing dishes, eating breakfast, working the field using their tractor, lambing their sheep and noting a weird new sound the tractor is making. Yes this effectively conveys the dullness of their isolated life on their farm - but it does come at the cost of stringing the audience along for a bit too long. Almost a full half-hour passes before the audience finally gets a good look at this human-sheep hybrid -- and why María and Ingvar might consider raising it as their human child.
But when the movie turns a corner - it veers into the truly absurd: María and Ingvar raise a human-sheep hybrid, raising this bizarre creature as their child. It's literally a very young child that looks like a normal human toddler from the neck down ... but from the neck up, it's a straight-up lamb head. Watching the toddler-sized child run around in human clothing and a pretty convincing, CGI lamb head is very surreal. And the movie pretty much plays it straight with this crazy concept - María and Ingvar are stunned at first, but proceed to raise the child, who they name Ada, as their child ... without batting an eyelash. So this horror drama is basically a straightforward drama when it comes to its rather conventional relationship conflicts - but with some horror undertones related to Ada's mysterious origins.
'Lamb' gets credit for its brazenly bonkers and unconventionally original plot, but its abuse of creepy, atmospheric music borders on outright manipulation. The film deliberately has no soundtrack ... except when something sinister is occurring. This weird movie is totally OK with letting silence and unnervingly quiet ambient sound define the film - but cueing up the forced, "creepy" music just feels like a horror cliché.
Strip away all the brazenly strange aspects of 'Lamb,' and what it really boils down to is: a couple in mourning get an unexpected second chance at starting the family they had hoped for. But in execution, the movie comes off as a "what if a human couple raised a sheep-human hybrid as their child?" In this case, 'Lamb' is perhaps a bit too subtle for its own good - only hinting at María and Ingvar's past difficulties raising a family. Everything María and Ingvar do is directly connected to their strong desire to raise a family together - and 'Lamb' could have made a more definitive, concerted effort to clearly establish their motives rather than just hint at some past tragedies and just assume any audience member would totally buy into the idea of a human couple just raising a lamb as a human.
Final verdict: 'Lamb' is an unabashedly weird and refreshingly original film that coasts on its weird premise, only managing elicit any emotions in its closing moments. Yet another intriguing concept that probably should have been re-conceptualized as a focused short rather than a drawn-out feature length film.
Score: 2.5/5
'Lamb' opens in theaters nationwide on Oct.8. This dramatic horror has a runtime of 106 minutes and is rated R for some bloody violent images and sexuality/nudity.
