 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. So this is for the 2017 release the killing of a sacred deer now This is an a 24 production. So as You horror fans probably know out there when you hear a 24 It's not necessarily gonna be for everyone, but I will say I really enjoyed a lot of the offerings by a 24 Prior to this the ones that I've seen the witch Greenroom midsummer hereditary This one goes right on top of that pile I've enjoyed all of those I do plan on seeing even more but They have a particular way of doing horror films where it's not super straightforward now These are films that make you really think they make you really look for the underlying themes for so for that reason I really love these films. I kind of live for these types of horror films because I really want to dig into them I want a film that when I'm done. I'm like, okay I know what happened in the film, but thematically what happened what it what is trying to be said here? What points does this make and I feel like the killing of a sacred deer has that to it in spades I thought about this so much after the film was over and I loved it The other thing is this film is unsettling all the way through and it's weird because it's a very slow-paced film at times and The fact that you feel tense and you feel unsettled the entire way through is insane And with how how slow the pacing is sometimes the fact that you're still super engaged at least me personally I was so We'll talk a little bit more about some of this stuff But I'm really gonna deep dive into it and I will be doing spoilers since this movie's been out for about three years now So it's kind of at that threshold for me to go ahead and do spoilers So spoilers on this if you haven't seen it yet Please stop here go watch it on Netflix and then come back and check it out because that's where I watch it was on Netflix Now this is directed by your ghost Lanthimos now your ghost has done films such as dog tooth Which currently is available for streaming on the shutter streaming service the lobster Which is also available for streaming on Netflix and the favorite which I think that might be on Hulu right now I'm not 100% sure I'd have to recheck that but I believe the favorite have been nominated for best picture last year So after seeing the killing of the sacred deer, I plan on seeing dog tooth the lobster and the favorite Probably relatively soon at least dog tooth and the lobster because they're very readily accessible to me Maybe the favorite if it's available on Hulu like I said So the script was written by Lanthimos and Ephemis Philip who I suppose who also wrote dog tooth and the lobster Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman and Barry Keon Keon are the big names in this one Obviously everyone knows Colin Farrell one of my favorite films of Colin Farrell So I'll just throw out there is in bruise that is a very underrated film in my opinion It's not horror or anything, but it's kind of dark comedy in a way Check out in bruise if you haven't seen it. He he gives his best performance of that in my opinion Well, I mean he does a great job in this but Nicole Kidman, everyone knows Nicole Kidman I'll go ahead and tell you my favorite movie of hers eyes wide shut by Stanley Kubrick go watch that one and then this guy Barry Keon Keon, I don't know how to say he was in you'd recognize his face very very recognizable He was in Dunkirk American animals Chernobyl and he's gonna be in the Eternals as well apparently Great actor great young actor and that's one of the strengths about this film in general is It's not only like for technical technical everything this film is really good. It's directed really well The cinematography looks great. There are a lot of really amazing like slow smooth moving camera movements The acting is outstanding this casted so so well with it No weak part at all with that. It's just technically very very good So this apparently this film competed for the palm to or which is the you know penultimate When am I looking for a ward sorry for the can't can film festival in 2017 it didn't win it But it competed for it and the film apparently was shot in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is interesting Ben there. I went to college not far from Cincinnati, Ohio So diving into the actual film. I thought it was a really weird start to be showing the heart Pumping with the choir music, but it makes sense. Obviously with who Steven Gardner is in this film You know Colin Farrell's character because that's what he does for a living, you know It's it's getting an inside look at what his job is and really everything Starts everything at the at the heart of the ha no pun intended everything at the heart of the conflict in this film is spawned from his heart surgery from him being a surgeon, so It's fitting that they kind of start that way It seems like a very weird way to start and it's kind of off-putting But it kind of helped set the tone of how off-putting and Unsettling and Tensis film is in general now the choir music is used twice in this film I think at least twice that I noticed and I'll talk about the second time that it's used much later on So you can surmise it was towards the end So the character of Martin seems very twitchy when he shows up first and presents like maybe he's on the spectrum Meaning on the spectrum of autism, but then again, I had written that down When I was first watching it, but then I started to feel like all of the characters kind of acted that way And then I realized this was a conscious Decision by Lanthimos to have all the characters kind of be devoid of Emotion early on in the film and there's and there's a reason for that that I'm gonna talk about a little bit later And one of the main reasons being is everyone starts off very emotionless and kind of unfeeling and then eventually towards the end that's when all the emotion is there and I'll talk about that a little bit more and the significance of that, but at first it just seems odd You know because you're like is everyone autistic in this or people just don't like emotions or because it the way they interact It's just all very curt very straightforward. There's like no inflection There's like no emotional anything shown with their faces or anything like that. So it's just very weird So that kind of helps set the tone as well for like this feels odd What is going on here and that helps to add to it being unsettling The whole family dynamic is extremely emotionless and matter of fact when they're speaking The first time you really see this is when they're at the dinner table initially and just the back and forth It's just like Steven's working environment. I wrote down like just like where he works is extremely sterile and blank or I don't want to say blank sterile and bland in a sense His family is sterile and bland the way they interact with each other the way they just are in general It's interesting The sexual role play in this early on is really weird between Steven and his wife Anna So it seems like and I people put comments down there He he kind of has a fantasy of having sex with knocked out patients Because that's kind of what it seems like as Anna, you know It takes her clothes off and like lays back on the bed and presents herself like she's knocked out because she even says before She does that which say anesthesia. I think she says something like that general anesthesia I think is what she said so it leads me to believe that they have different phases of that type of role play as well that maybe general anesthesia is one and maybe Dead is another one potentially if it goes far enough, but that's a weird way to kind of start things and I think it it's a Over-the-top way of showing kind of how cold their relationship really is and you kind of understand that because much later on You know Steven puts himself in a situation where he could end up cheating and he kind of it seems like maybe he's thinking about a little bit But you also find out that Anna had been in a situation where she almost cheated and then to get information later She gives a hand job Which she's just like okay, this is just what I have to do to get this information But that says things are you know very much falling apart But also coming together in a way, which I'll talk more about that in a bit. I Wonder if the lack of this is what I wrote down before I wonder if the lack of emotion is supposed to make a point of how doctors have to detach themselves Constantly because of the nature of the work that they do I feel like there could actually be a component of that to the actual film But I think as I'll talk about it even later I think it's it's it's it's being done for a much more important purpose story-wise The other thing I thought is that maybe it was used a little bit to make the audience kind of feel less connected to the characters Just because there's their setup is being you know very well to do very rich and Martin's character is coming from a very different place Socioeconomically he's on the other end of that spectrum. So I don't know if we were supposed to kind of As an audience feel less connected to them because they're rich and they're kind of like alien people in a way and feel more Connected to him as we learn more about his past and you know his father passing and all that type of stuff but I did maybe a little bit of that but to a much lesser degree as Soon as Steven reveals that Martin's father died and was a patient of Stevens I Knew that this was going to be the crux of what was going on with the actual issue in this film the actual Conflict and where that was going to spawn from and everything I did see where it was going and I think a lot of people who watch this kind of see where it's going not like Ultimately see where it's going but see a lot of where it's going and and that's the thing with this film Is it felt weird to me that it kind of telegraph things so much and let you know so much up front and gave you the feeling of where things were gonna go but it threw enough extra stuff in there and twists and Things to think about that. It wasn't as straightforward as I thought it Initially seemed like it was gonna be so that was good When Martin has Steven over for dinner and a movie it seems that he's trying to give his mom the opportunity to make a Move on Steven so that he can regain a father now. He talks about this later on He kind of coyly goes at it just being kind of more like oh, you know, I'm doing this for my mom Like my mom finds him you know find Steven attractive So I kind of like set up the situation that maybe she can do that But I think it spawns a lot more from his situation of him feeling like he wants his family to be whole again Because obviously everything at the root of this film has to do with him losing his father Him going through a very tough time with that and trying to figure out how to put his life back together How to make it maybe feel somewhat normal so in a really weird sick way he wants to Connect with the person who was at fault and it seems that he believes the whole time that he was at fault He wants to connect with that person who's at fault for his father's death and make that person become his new father It's kind of like a sick way of fixing things and the whole film is just a sick way of fixing things really So talk a little bit more about that How aggressive Martin's mom is with trying to get in Steven's pants is actually kind of funny First of all, I thought it was cool that Alicia Silverstone played the mother I haven't seen her in anything in quite a while. So that was good She did a good job in that role even though it was you know pretty limited But the fact that she's just like oh, let me look at your hand and then she's just like sucking his fingers It was just like that's pretty aggressive Maybe you know take it back a little bit But I think that kind of showed her leap to desperation where she was trying to slow play it the whole time with you know Oh be here for dinner and let's just hang out during this movie And do you want some dessert and why don't you stick around and then she's just like I feel like I'm not getting anywhere So let me just jump at it and then see if he takes the bait and obviously he doesn't as The film progresses Martin oozes more and more desperation which ends up driving Steven away now I wouldn't say this is calculated at times. It feels like that's kind of a calculated move by Martin But I don't think it really was I just think he was good at adapting to it But you just kind of see that like he starts to feel more and more desperate like he wants Steven to become his family and I think at some point he kind of abandons that and and switches more to the strategy of fixing Their family the Gardner family for Steven's daughter, which I forget her name in this And I didn't write it down. So, you know, someone can tell me down there But it we all know who I'm talking about because there was only one daughter So, you know, we'll continue with that But I think he kind of changes his plan at that point when he gets to know her and he actually likes her I think he's like, let me fix this in a way for her and I can do it in a way that I was already Going to kind of do things if that makes any sense When Bob can't feel his legs you just know that's a warning from Martin to not be ignored at least in the in the beginning It seems like that but then you really understand that this is just the first part of the plan in motion This has to happen and he even explains that he says, you know, first, it's the you know the paralysis from the legs down then it's the Lack of apt appetite not eating losing weight then it's the bleeding from the eyes and then death ends up coming at that point What goes on with Bob mirrors what Martin said was happening with his father Being told nothing is wrong, but you know something is wrong Maybe if it's one of his family members Stephen would care enough to find out what's wrong And that's kind of what it felt like Martin was doing kind of like teaching a lesson to Stephen in a sense because when he was talking to Stephen He had said, you know everything, you know You had said like everything's fine with my dad and then he goes into the surgery that potentially should have been Routine and he doesn't come out of it. So why is it that I'm told everything's fine. Everything's fine. Everything's fine And then he dies so Making Bob having Bob Go through what he went through it was Stephen's opportunity then or Martin's opportunity to have Stephen experience that same kind of uncertainty that same emotion of Doctors literally telling you everything's fine with this kid. Everything's fine. Everything's fine But you know something's wrong and and Stephen especially knows something wrong is wrong because Martin admitted to him that he had something to do with it Not directly like he directly tells him what's going to go on But he doesn't say that he specifically did anything and he also doesn't say what happened Which by the way, I theorize that what happened is there was some sort of Not necessarily this but something like anthrax laced on the Keychains that he had given the kids in the beginning now also he could have put something in the Lemonade that he brought to the hospital as well. So You know whether he got people to drink it eat it or whatever. We don't know but Because that's never explained which I would I would like I would have liked that explained in a sense at the end And I kind of thought they were going to but they didn't that's okay But you know you kind of want that but there are a few moments that I think if you rewatch the film Which I've only watched it once at this point. I think you'd be able to look and to be like, oh, maybe that's what happened But the key chains. I think they focused on that a lot when he actually gave them to him Like the there were close-ups and so I was like, I think that's significant So maybe he laced those with something but anyway The whole point to go back to the whole point I'm trying to get at is that martin is setting up it seems that martin's setting up the situation So that steven will emotionally go through what martin already went through because of steven's actions Which is you know as it's talked about steven's drinking leading to martin's father dying in the operation room The shot of ana through a window with leaf shadows around her is in in his amazingly stunning shot like I said the cinematography and directing for this is really good And that shot's actually done two times. So I'm not a hundred percent sure what the significance of that is but um But yeah, it happens first when they kind of come out of trying to figure out what's going on with bob when they're at the hospital And she's kind of standing there and they're shooting through the window and there's all these leaf shadows around her face And then later it happens in the glass of the glass door when she's trying to get to Talk to martin at his house. So it's a reoccurring thing. So I assume there's a significant significance there But i'm not a hundred percent sure what that is But it looks good When martin tells steven the whole plan that he has to kill a family member. I was surprised I figured this was happening. I figured this was kind of happening But for him to say it seemed like an odd choice film wise I thought why wouldn't you just have it play out or hint at this type of stuff happening instead of pretty early on for the runtime I think it was around like the hour marker. So him just coming out and saying, okay Here's what's gonna happen and he's so blunt about it But it doesn't make sense for the personality that they set up for that character and really all the characters to be honest So it was just weird though. I just didn't see them Doing that at that time in the film Why aren't they going to the authorities for this? Uh was one of my questions it would make sense to go to the authorities to try and get this taken care of I assume maybe it's to keep uh, steven's secret hidden Of you know having something to do with martin's father passing away because he was drinking Because I know you'd have to find out what a motive is for martin to be doing what he was doing So, um, I assume that's what it what it is But I feel like at some point you would just be like look we got to suck this up and save the family So we got to go to the authorities. So for that reason I feel like that was one of the kind of the plot holes They never at any point sought to go to any sort of sort of authority figure They always sought to deal with it themselves and that didn't seem very realistic I think that's kind of a plot hole because one of your best options is to get law enforcement involved really Some information for a hand job. What a family is what I put down I already talked about that when Anna, you know gives a hand job to the anesthesiologist to get the inside information It just kind of helps to show like how far apart the family is But at that time she's doing it because she needs this information to figure out what's going on When steven wakes up anna and his hand is red I figured he roughed up martin and kidnapped him I knew that was coming like that was a cool way to kind of indicate it to the audience before they actually showed him tied up in the basement Um, you know when he's like waking up anna and you see there's like a red portion on his hand like right here Um As soon as I saw that I was just like, oh, they talked so much about his hands Being so nice looking and being so perfect and here he's Blemished it, but he's done it for the family and for revenge and to get this thing taken care of So that was interesting. Um You see the true level of martin's crazy when he bites steven are steven's arm and then his own But this was kind of an important moment to kind of show that This is how things have to be a like a tit for tat eye for an eye two through two type thing But I think he was also trying to time trying to not just say you must feel what I felt or feel what I feel But um, this is how we get through this together in a way. It's kind of weird and I'll talk a little bit more about that coming up here Steven's concern about the kid with psychological problems that isn't him being martin But we finally see his daughter is just like martin Those two are two peas in a pod Which you definitely see when they first meet each other because they talk alike. They interact alike. They Have a lack of emotion much the same So you really see that So it's also this kind of messed up degree where You know people in general just feel like you know other people's kids are worse than their kids You know people are very much blind to Their own children and you know, oh my my kid's obviously much better than that So he's very concerned and he talks about it a few times with the psychological condition of martin Yet here we are and his daughter is the same way and that's kind of why You know, his daughter ends up basically being in league with martin Which I want to have some questions and stuff coming up about that But and it also seems to degree his son bob was like that as well because everyone kind of Interacted the same way when steven's asking asking the principal at the school, which of his kids is best It just goes to show two things One steven is actually trying to figure out which one to kill which is chilling very unsettling and chilling You know the whole movie's unsettling but this that in particular and two He doesn't really even know his kids But I think that's also an overall thing of none of these family members really know each other That's what it seems like because of the the very trite Kurt ways they interact with each other and they kind of don't even seem to have any Emotional bonds although those emotional bonds start to form as they start going through the horrific thing that martin set in motion Things are slow and drawn out, but it feels like the tension stays throughout already talked about that Uh the spinning and shooting technique when he finally decides i'm going to kill someone I'm going to go with these rules that martin's laid out the spinning and shooting idea where he would just You know put bags on the heads of all his family members and then you know put The beanie over his head so he can't see who he's going to shoot So it's fair like I understand he was doing that to make it fair But there are a few issues with this one You don't know how many times you're actually going to have to fire. Do you have enough bullets? The other thing is it's just making everyone on edge. It's making everyone afraid every time a shot happens The other thing is When you finally shoot someone, how do you know it's going to be a fatal shot? Someone could get shot in a very Minor way and bleed out for a long time being terrible agony The other thing is neighbors. I assume that someone would hear gunshots now wouldn't that draw the authorities So I think that's another plot hole because in the end it is alluded to the fact that no one says anything about this That no one called the cops. No one heard any gunshots, which there were plenty of them Uh, that's just another plot hole for this. So, you know Notice that the music from the beginning comes back in the end I told you I would talk about this again the choir music in the beginning with the heart happening It comes back in the end So we first hear it as we are introduced to steven's life life as a Surgeon we then hear it again when steven is introduced to his new life Meaning in the diner that's when the new life starts because that's when he is signaling to martin as he enters the diner That it is done. He is there. Anna is there and his daughter is there. Bob is not there. That's the signal of look. We did it He's gone. Um, everything's even now because as martin had said one of your family members has to die This is what has to happen and then everything will be better so The music is meant to it to show his Initial life and then at the end his new life starting which I thought was an interesting use As the gardeners leave the diner at the end the daughter has a prolonged look with martin This made me consider her role in this whole thing a little bit more because she does real reveal that she has In in cryptic ways that she has some sort of role in all of this I think martin enlisted her help and told her that That's the way to make the family better and to make her father father actually care About the people in the family which is an interesting way to sell her on it It seems like she was all in based off some things that she said with martin's plan She did try to appeal to him at the end because I think she was afraid for her own life Um, and maybe it was a situation where he didn't tell her To what degree this whole plan would go But I think he at least told her vaguely like we have to do some of this stuff to make your father care to bring out his emotion um, which I think does happen like it's it's actually It happens like it works martin's plan actually works in a sense um There's a constant question of this of what they're playing at and that actually helps with Keeping the tension keeping it feeling unsettling because like you know to a degree where things are going going to go But you don't know to what degree they're going to go there and it ends up being Disturbing unsettling Well done The whole film feels unsettling even when normal mundane things are happening part of this is the score the score with a lot of kind of um guttural noises and kind of sounding like things being scraped against metals and things like that and like some low drums um So part of that's the score part is what's implied that's going on and part is the emotionless nature of the whole thing With super odd dialogue because that's the other thing is the way the dialogue is written between the people It's just odd like not just the delivery, but the dialogue, but it fits within the film. It actually works a lot um In any other film. It probably wouldn't really work that well So I wrote it It's like steven actually develops emotion over the course of the film The only emotion he starts in this film with is guilt if you remember that he seems so emotionless with everyone in his life Everyone that he should be showing the motion to and emotion about especially with the uh The matter of fact way he talks about everything like when he says oh my my daughter got her first period She's menstruating like all of a sudden it sounds so clinical It sounds so emotionless and so cold and sterile But the one emotion he has and you can see in the beginning is guilt because he feels guilty For what he did when he was drinking and ended up killing martin's father And for that reason he forges this kind of relationship with martin And then brings him into the house But over the course of martin's plan all these horrible events You see him gradually starting to feel starting to show other emotions until at the end He has a range of emotions that he's demonstrated that he's still currently feeling And I think also his facial hair ends up being a indicator of how far he's gone with that emotional change Because he's always clean shaven and by the end he's got a pretty large beard So I think that's another indicator that was put in there visually intentionally The horrible events are what made the family care about each other. So it's not actually just steven It's everybody This points out how much we all take our loved ones for granted when they're always there and healthy This is something it made me think about and I think the movie's kind of geared Towards making you think about the fact that you live with someone or you have someone in your life And you just kind of you know take for granted the fact that they're always there that you can always talk to them That you can always go to them when you need something or or they need something But When you step back and realize that that could all change Then doesn't that make you feel a little bit more? Doesn't that make you put things in the context a little bit better? And that's kind of what was going on Well, not kind of it is exactly what was going on with the gardener family Is they were all taking each other for granted just the fact that they were there And they actually seem more annoyed with the fact that the rest of them were around They all seem very self-centered and they just wanted to exist in their own little bubbles As opposed to actually interacting with each other and you know Leaving themselves open to emotion and caring about each other But this ordeal what martin said in emotion Brings all that out it changes everything the whole family dynamic is totally different And you can make the argument that the family is in a better place In the end Which is messed up, but I think it's the reality the situation and martin makes a statement about that When they have them tied up in the basement. He says, you know, I don't know what you have to do But you know, you got to do something because in the end it's going to be better. Um, so it's crazy But I think that was kind of the whole point of of what martin put in the in emotion is maybe he was giving a gift To steven to put his life back on track, you know Maybe this wasn't a revenge thing or maybe it was dual purpose. Maybe it was also revenge But it was also Legitimately trying to help steven out to give him something that he wanted because it's possible that he saw That steven wasn't even happy with his family because of the emotionless interactions and thought well bring him to my family I'll I'll love him. My mother will love him We'll be a loving family and then when he realized that's not going to happen He decided well then through this maybe It will change their dynamic and make them finally care about each other And yeah, and you see at one point anna actually accepts that because she She comes that realization that someone's got to go and she literally says to him You know, if if one of our kids is gone, we can have another one So she's already planning for the future already thinking that this family will continue Which is already a better thought than what was going on because it always looked like the family was on the verge of Not existing, you know So the last the last thought I had on this is In I looked this up because I was like the title the killing of a sacred deer Now what is sacred for deer? Um, so I thought native american culture. I know Is very in touch with nature. So I looked up what deer kind of mean to native culture So maybe this has something to do with the title. Maybe it doesn't I'm just floating it as an idea So I wrote down in native culture deer symbolized totems representing sensitivity Intuition and gentleness Martin loses this when his father dies And steven gains it When he kills bob I think that stands up. I think that's a good theory But put a comment down here. Let me know your thoughts on that Um, but also just your thoughts on this film in general. I really liked it Although like I said, there are some plot holes like at this point. How do you explain that your child is gone? You know, like how do you explain that you just had two children? One of them was sick and then all of a sudden he's gone There are a lot of things that needed to be explained with that So it's not all neatly tied up with a bow The other thing about his you know idea of spinning around and shooting people You know the cops would have come, you know, so there are some plot holes So it's not a perfect film, but it's really well done and I really like it I really want to check out everything your ghost lanthimos at this point like I said in the beginning So with five stars possible, uh, half stars in play. I'm gonna go ahead You know, I'm gonna go ahead and give this a four and a half stars I wanted to give it the five because I liked it so much but with those plot holes there I just can't give it the full five But if I could if I was doing quarters, I'd do four point seven five, but I'm gonna go four and a half on it That was a really good film. I really recommend it for people and I will recommend it for people But it's not for everyone since it's so, you know unsettling But anyway, like I said put some comments down there. Let's talk about this film Do me a quick favor hit that subscribe if you like any videos. I do anything Uh, that's your way to repay me. It literally takes you a second and it's totally painless Means a lot for my channel if you're already subscribed just hit that thumbs up just so I know that you're still watching Uh, but regardless, thanks for checking this out and until next time keep it brutal