10 Horror Movies That Lied To You In The Title

The last few years in cinema have taught us that Barry Keoghan can turn his hand, face, voice -- you name it -- to anything. But perhaps the first of his major roles that made us sit up and take notice was in Yorgos Lanthimos' uncanny psychological horror The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

Dr Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell) is a renowned cardiovascular surgeon who finds his idyllic suburban household and picture-perfect family of four encroached upon by Martin Lang (Keoghan), a menacing, hateful and yet largely emotionless young man with a deadly agenda. Martin becomes an increasingly larger presence in the Steven's life, seeking revenge for the death of his father on the doctor's operating table, and presents him with an ultimatum: Steven must kill one of his family or they will all die.

Keoghan is undeniably fantastic in this career-defining role, Thimios Bakatakis' cinematography is fascinatingly sharp and sterile, and Lanthimos' writing is bleak and unrelenting yet darkly humorous, but if you come to see the killing of a sacred deer, you will leave sorely disappointed. The title alludes to a Greek myth in which a goddess demanded human sacrifice as recompense after her sacred deer was slain. But no deer were harmed in the making of this film.