I actually think this is better than The Lobster, because here we have a cohesive through line with a film that feels like it was built from the ground up. The Lobster felt to me like it was a film that could be split exactly in half, and the problem for me was the second half just did not live up to the bonkers heights of its first half. 

With Killing of a Sacred Dear, though the writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos mostly maintains the deadpan tone (and pushes the deliberately flat line delivery) he has become known for, what works is actually just how emotional and scary the story becomes and how invested we are in the core family, though it’s arguable that each of the characters have a hideous side (later on when the children try and out-“good” each other there’s some deliciously dark humour at play). The films conclusion feels both inevitable and shocking; as with A Nightmare on Elm Street, the children have to pay for their parents’ (in this case, father’s) sins - and I was reminded of Michael Haneke at his most brutal.

Colin Farrell is truly wonderful in this. Always on the precipice, a step or two from the void, he is riddled with anxiety and struggling to maintain authority and masculinity and composure and he’s also sexy as fucking hell. He really does have beautiful hands.