“A teenager’s attempts to bring a brilliant surgeon into his dysfunctional family take an unexpected turn.” That’s the official synopsis for “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” according to IMDB but it doesn’t even come close to describing what’s going on in the film’s first trailer.
Here are the things we know: Colin Farrell plays a surgeon. Barry Keoghan plays the teenager. Nicole Kidman plays Farrell’s wife. Alicia Silverstone plays the teen’s mother. People throughout the trailer are moving around like their legs don’t work. There’s revenge involved.
And that’s it. The trailer is atmospheric, especially with the creepiest version of “Burn” by Ellie Goulding you’ll ever hear playing over it. It’s unsettling but at some points darkly funny. There’s no deer so we have no idea what that title means.
The latest film from Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, who most recently directed the indie hit “The Lobster,” made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival this year. It was one of two winners of Best Screenplay (tied with the Joaquin Phoenix thriller “You Were Never Really Here”). Also, like many of Lanthimos’ films, it garnered some boos.
TheWrap’s Steve Pond said that in many ways, ‘”The Killing of a Sacred Deer’ is the Greek director’s most conventional film, but it still isn’t for everybody.”
And just like many of Lanthimos’ other works, we’ll have to wait for the full product to really get a taste.
Watch the full trailer above. The film hits theaters on Oct. 27.