No matter what the premise of a thriller movie or television series is, its true intent is to terrify its audience. Streaming platforms like Netflix have made being horrified at home much easier. Some use something familiar to terrify their viewers, whether it be a beloved object, a haunted estate, religion, or the end of the world. Others draw from personal or another worldly form of history to create the terror that leaves viewers sleeping with one eye open.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer uses Greek Mythology to help create its eerie tale (much like Netflix's Blood of Zeus). The film comes from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, who co-wrote The Killing of a Sacred Deer with fellow Greek Efthymis Filippou. Starring Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman, The Killing of a Sacred Deer follows a less-than-perfect family on a journey that will leave no one the same.
Steven (Farrell) and Anna (Kidman) lead the Murphy family. Both Anna and Steven are doctors who are admired to a horrifying level for their respective skill sets. Together, they have two children, Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and Bob (Sunny Suljic), and after the family begins to interact with one another, it's clear something about them is off. The best instance of this early on is during an intimate scene between Anna and Steven, where she pretends to be under anesthesia to arouse her husband. Even though the Murphy's have more than a few eerie quirks, they are a functioning family.
If viewers aren't squirming in the opening sequence where a live surgery is being conducted, they may once they meet Martin (Barry Keoghan). As odd as the Murphys may seem on their own, their strangeness is amplified once Steven takes Martin under his wing. Steven tells Anna that after Martin lost his father in a car accident, he only wishes to help the young man grieve the loss of his father. By doing so, Martin has dinner at the Murphy house where he meets the rest of the family for the first time. Kim takes a liking to Martin which turns out to be both a blessing and a curse.
Shortly after the Murphy dinner, Steven has dinner with Martin and his mother, who attempts to seduce Steven. Her attempts are unsuccessful and aware of the strange motives of Martin and his mother, Steven becomes wary of the family. Aware that they want to replace the lost father and husband, Steven begins to ignore Martin. This is forced to change when Bob wakes up unable to move his legs. Thinking that Bob is simply trying to get out of going to school, Steven grows agitated (and slightly violent) before he realizes that his son is telling the truth.
As the strange condition slowly spreads throughout the family and worsens, the choice Steven faces becomes clear. He must kill one member of his family or all three of them will die. Unwilling to make sense of the decision he has to make, Steven tries to avoid the choice altogether. When he is forced to accept that won't work, he resorts to drastic measures to solve his problem.
It is in this difficult choice that the film earns its name. As much as Steven tries to pretend the problem doesn't exist, it is clear that if the family wants to survive, one of them must die. Much debate goes on about who it should be and why, and it reaches a point where Kim offers herself to be sacrificed. She gives a few reasons why she doesn't mind dying for her family, including her love for Martin. It is near the middle of the film that it is revealed that Kim wrote a paper about Iphigenia for school. The reference is subtle, but it is not without motive.
There are a few renditions of Iphigenia and her father, Agamemnon, and the fate suffered. One rendition of the legend is that during the Trojan War efforts, Agamemnon angers Artemis by killing a sacred deer. In her anger, Artemis makes the weather less than ideal for Agamemnon's ships to sail for battle. The only way Agamemnon can appease Artemis is by sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia. There are variations of whether Iphigenia is actually sacrificed in the end, as some versions have Iphigenia escape death by being replaced by another deer.
Without knowing the Greek legend behind the story of Iphigenia's sacrifice and the choices her father made that led to the needed sacrifice, the legend's link to The Killing of a Sacred Deer is clear. In order to make up for the sins of a father, someone else is forced to die. While Agamemnon and Steven may not be considered one and the same, the circumstances surrounding both men make the sacrificial theme from the Greek Myth a bit more horrifying.
Knowledge of the Greek Myth or not, there are various threads that pull from the core narrative of the film. Between the unfortunate choice the Murphys have to make, their odd way of interacting with one another, and Martin's sinister presence, there is a lot to unravel in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. No matter which way the story unfolds, it's capable of chilling anyone to the bone.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is now streaming on Netflix.