70
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
Lamb is a disturbing experience but also a highly original take on the anxieties of being a parent, a tale in which nature plus nurture yields a nightmare.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
Lamb indeed is more of a slow build-up of dread than it is a real shocker, and Jóhannsson does know how to rack up the tension with long takes, long silences, and sparse set design.
75
Lamb takes a low-key minimalist approach to its premise that invites a certain shock-and-awe reaction before doubling back to give it purpose.
70
No matter how pure your intentions nor how real your pain, these ancient myths all teach us, debts always come due, and the chilling denouement of Jóhannsson’s dark, deliberate debut suggests that is what Lamb is: a modern-day take on some ancient, pre-Disneyfication fairy tale or a nursery rhyme with a sinister history encoded into its Spartan melody.
70
The brilliantly sustained mood and matter-of-fact absurdity of Valdimar Jóhannsson’s impressive debut is slightly let down by a pay-off which doesn’t entirely land. Still, the majority of the picture is strong enough to satisfy audiences with a taste for folk horror oddities, even if the ending isn’t quite as punchy as one might have anticipated.
A strange and unique blend of myth and reality that defies genre. The sympathetic characters and steady pacing of the film anchor a story (and a shocking ending) that could have easily left its viewers behind for its absurdity.