Images courtesy A24.
8/10 The Killing of a Sacred Deer is one of those mysteries that’s coy about major plot elements, so consider this entire review marked for mild spoilers
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Martin (Barry Keoghan), high school student aspiring to become a medical professional, has struck up a mentor relationship with skilled heart surgeon Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell). Though Martin’s father is initially stated to have died instantly in a car accident 10 years earlier, it’s later revealed that he made it to the hospital and died on Murphy’s operating table. As revenge, Martin tells Murphy that his wife and children will first be paralyzed from the waist down, then refuse to eat, then hemorrhage from the eyes and then finally die. Martin tells him the only way to break this curse is to choose and kill one of his afflicted family members and destroy his own family the way he destroyed Martin’s.
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