The newest film to come from A24 is the unsettling Lamb, by relatively new director Valdimar Jóhannsson and starring Noomi Rapace. This Icelandic horror-fantasy film follows a couple who adopt a human-sheep hybrid after grieving their previous attempts to conceive, and the fallout of their new family affects their lives immensely.
The film, while receiving somewhat mixed reviews, leaves a lasting impression. And for those who enjoy the niche genre that this film fits into, there are many other films that could fill that hunger for certain viewers.
This is another horror film that looks at the adoption of someone not quite human, and reflects Lamb's themes of the desperation of motherhood. Brightburn is about a couple that adopts a soon-to-be evil superbeing. While Ada in Lamb is not so evil, she brings a similar sense of foreboding doom.
There are actually quite a few films like Brightburn. As the superchild, Brandon, begins to grow in power and do more horrific things, his adopted mother Tori turns a blind eye as she is so desperate for a child. She is willing to overlook everything that he does until it is too late, and he becomes more terrifying than the haunting Ram Man in Lamb.
While Hunt For The Wilderpeople is a more lighthearted coming of age film, it similarly deals with the themes of grief and foster care, and the separation that a parent may feel from their child. This movie by Taika Waititi involves a boy and his new guardian, who aren't exactly connecting, traversing through the New Zealand wildlife, while a social worker diligently pursues them.
The film has some darker aspects to its story, such as one of the main characters being accused of being a paedophile. The movie also explores mankind's relationship and domination of nature for their own benefit, and uses nature to explore human emotion, like Lamb does.
This film actually has a performance in it by Lamb's writer and director, Valdimar Jóhannsson. The story is also set in Iceland, but this time it is in the middle ages, where a young boy discovers that the mysterious creature feared by his superstitious village is an Inuit child.
This film has a similar moral backdrop to it, in that it feels like a folktale in the same way that Lamb does. Ikíngut deals with someone making a connection that others don't understand, which is similar to how Pétur doesn't understand María's attachment to Ada. It has the charm that Lamb sometimes dabbles in, and is definitely worth a watch.
This film is similarly laced with a dark, shadowy, monstrous figure, and relates it to the pain that a mother is experiencing. In The Babadook, Amelia is attempting to be a good mother, but her grief from her husband's death takes over her life, as does the Babadook.
This horror movie is rather well known, with the Babadook monster becoming one of the twenty-first century's most iconic horror villains. But it's still a relatively underrated horror film like Lamb is. Perhaps this is because both films take their time to unpack the horror that they present, and they deal more with emotional scares rather than monstrous ones.
This horror film has developed somewhat of a cult following, and presents a similar message to Lamb. The plot is about two parents who give birth to a monstrous killer baby after the mother has been taking contraceptive pills. The specifics of this film's message are outdated of course, but it matches Lamb in its question of what natural motherhood really means, and both movies appear to be cautionary tales.
As stated by Variety, in Lamb, "the storytelling most evoked here is pre-Christian, mythological, folkloric, the kind of discomfiting stories that were not designed to soothe children at bedtime but to threaten people," and that is definitely what It's Alive evokes too.
If Lamb is known for its use of sheep, then The Witch is known for its goat, Black Phillip. The satanic goat has become infamous for its behavior on the A24 film's set, but what it represents in The Witch adds a layer of horror to the film. The lamb Ada is much less threatening, but again, it's what the lamb represents that leaves the audience feeling unsettled.
Lamb has been praised for its animal performances, and while the goat in The Witch was a pain behind the scenes, its acting is just as convincing. Furthermore, The Witch has a stillness to its environment, so if viewers were drawn to that in Lamb, they can find it again here.
Rosemary's Baby similarly deals with the anxieties of new motherhood. The plot involves a woman who has just become pregnant and starts dreaming strange things. The film creates a sense of danger surrounding the forces outside of Rosemary and her child, which is a similar situation that new-mother María finds herself in Lamb.
María's half-sheep half-human child is the descendent of the film's main villain, the Ram Man. A similar situation occurs in Rosemary's Baby, only this time, instead of the Ram Man, her child belongs to the Devil itself. It is a definite horror classic, and worth watching for Rosemary's underrated theme song alone.
While a vastly different tone and genre, if you like the plot of Lamb, but want a more lighthearted version, Stuart Little is that film. This family film is about two parents who adopt a mouse named Stuart, and the challenges he faces while trying to acclimate to his new life.
The films actually share an awareness of their premises' ridiculousness. Lamb's trailer even has moments where it feels like a quirky, upbeat movie rather than a horror. The films also share a plot point of the pet cat not trusting the new child, though Lamb's cat doesn't talk. So perhaps if viewers have watched Lamb, and are feeling subsequently traumatized, Stuart Little can remedy that.
As Lamb is an A24 film, audiences may be looking for other films from the company to enjoy. Midsommar is one of the studio's most well known. It shares a similar environment to Lamb, but presents it in an interestingly different way. Both pull from the horrors of European pastoral landscapes and draw out the scares at a stereotypical A24 pace that is long but worth it, creating a steady build of unease that suddenly erupts in the films' final moments.
The two films explore grief with a sense of sympathy, while also warning that it can lead a person into making damaging decisions, decisions that may get other people hurt.
This is the most recent film on this list, but it is likely to remain in audiences minds for a while. Pieces of a Woman revolves around Martha and how her life dissolves when her baby dies shortly after its birth. The film also involves marital problems and potential adultery, similarly to Lamb. It has a fantastic performance by Vanessa Kirby, and the film is worth watching for her alone.
It's not a fantasy horror film like Lamb is, instead it has a gritty realistic take on how traumatizing such a situation can be. Because sometimes, real life is just as scary as a horror movie.
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