10 Horror Movies That Prove Less Is More
3. The Killing Of A Sacred Deer
Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most brilliantly singular filmmakers working today, blanketing each of his film projects - including Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Favourite - with a distinctly off-kilter tone.
That's never been more true than in his psychological horror masterpiece The Killing of a Sacred Deer, in which the family of a cardiac surgeon, Steven (Colin Farrell), begins to fall ill, and he's told by a mysterious teenage acquaintance (Barry Keoghan) that the only way to save his family is by killing one of them.
Lanthimos has a brilliant penchant for writing characters and directing actors to seem as detached from our own reality as possible - here the characters have a slightly off, robotic feel to them which creates an innately unsettling vibe from the outset.
The film as a whole is almost entirely bereft of gore and conventional scares, but does such a remarkable job mining suspense from Steven's dilemma that it's truly one of the most discomforting horrors of the last decade.