By Before the likes of films like Lamb and The Witch, you might have had an affinity for four-legged mammals of the medium-sized variety. Farm staples! But stare down those glassy eyes long enough and maybe… maybe not so much. Lamb, Valdimar Jóhannsson’s directorial debut, stars Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snaer Gudnason caught up in a Nordic bit of freaky folklore, on display in its new trailer.
The first trailer keeps details on the narrative mostly unsaid, but things speak for themselves mostly. A remote, childless Icelandic couple find themselves tending to more than baby chicks when a strange, fantastic birth from one of their herd yields a baby lamb of the upright variety. Naturally, this little bit of unnaturalness can’t end happily ever after, as a bit of fairytale horror creeps in.
Picked up by A24 after its Cannes Film Festival premiere, the NYC-based distributors would seem to be perpetuating their brand of off-kilter folkloric horror after the likes of Midsommar and The Witch (not to mention a love for animals following Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow) and, well, I’m here for it. Director Valdimar Jóhannsson has previously worked on several high-profile projects such as Rogue One and The Tomorrow War as a special effects technician, making his directorial debut with Lamb. For a film whose emotional core seems to hinge upon the believability of the lamb-boy in the trailer, it appears he may have found a great project to start.
Lamb releases October 8th to theaters.