Episode Transcript
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
The movie starts out with surgery. Heart surgery. No warning, just the heart beating and panning out to show the body being sewn back up. Disgusting. Opera music playing over the whole thing. I already hate my life and I just turned this movie on. Cut to the title of the film screen and doctors disrobing after the surgery has been completed. Two doctors are walking through the hospital hallways talking about their watches and how they want new ones based on the water resistances. Pricks. One doctor tells the other about how he should have gotten a leather strap instead of a metal one.
Steven meets a young man named Martin at a local diner for some lunch. They make small talk about Murphy’s hair cut and in what order they eat their food. Then they go to talk more by the water and Steven gives Martin a watch. Martin immediately asks if he can give Steven a hug and asks if he can change the strap from the metal to a leather one. Back at home, Steven is eating dinner with his wife and two kids. They are talking about Murphy’s hair and how he needs to get it cut. In the bedroom, Anna tells Steven she wants to bake him a lemon cake tomorrow and that no one else will eat it but him. They then look at each and say “general anesthetic? General anesthetic” and Anna pretends to be a patient under general anesthesia while Steven has sex with her. I know it was consensual, I still wanted to throw up during it.
At work the next day, Martin comes to the hospital to see steven unexpectedly. Steven tells him not to come to his place of work. Martin tells Steven he just wanted to show him the new leather strap on the watch. Steven tells Martin that the next time he wants to come to the hospital to give him a call first. Another doctor walks up to Steven with some test results and Martin notices that he has the same watch as the other doctor. Steven makes up a lie to tell the doctor about how Martin wants to be a cardiologist and came to the hospital to see what it was all about.
Kim shows Steven at home how her breathing has improved while singing and Steven discusses chore responsibilities with her and Bob. Anna and Steven leave to go to a party and we see Kim mimicking the sound of a siren. At the party, Steven gives a speech and makes short conversation at the party about how Bob has started piano lessons and Kim has started to menstruate. Anna and Steven leave the party early because Steven has surgery in the morning. Steven and Martin spend a shit load of time together. The next day, they are walking and talking by the water while Steven smokes a cigarette. Martin tells Steven he doesn’t have many friends but did get much closer to his mom after his dad died. Steven tells Martin he would like him to come over one day and meet his wife and children.
Cut to Martin bringing roses to the door of Steven’s house. He brought the roses for Anna, a CD for Bob, and a music note keychain for Kim. Kim, Bob and Martin hang out together in Kim’s room where they talk about Kim’s period and Martin’s armpit hair. Martin smokes a cigarette out the window and Kim tells Martin he has a nice body after he lifts up his shirt to show Bob his armpit hair. Martin and Kim talk about going on walk together and Kim wants to bring the dog but Martin says dogs scare him when they get in fights. Kim sings Martin a song by a tree while smoking a cigarette. She is a fucking terrible singer oh my god. Even American idol would be embarrassed to have her audition.
Back at the house in the living room, Martin tells Anna how much he loves her lemonade and how big and bright the kids’ rooms are. Steven offers to let Martin stay the night and Kim really wants him to but he insists he wants to go home to be with his mom and that they do not live in a nice neighborhood. While getting ready for bed, Anna asks Steven how long he has known Martin. He says he has known him for quite a while and that Martin used to be a patient of his. He tells Anna that he went to martin’s dad’s funeral and that Anna didn’t go because she was busy. Martin calls Steven to invite him over for dinner and that his mom would love to see Steven bc she hasn’t seen him since the hospital 2 years ago.
In the parking garage, Steven drives away and we see Martin in the parking garage. Steven confronts Martin about it but Martin denies he was in the garage. At Martin’s mother’s house, Steven has dinner and gets sucked into watching a movie with Martin and his mom. Martin goes to bed during the movie and his mom starts to ask Steven how long he has been married and tells him he has beautiful hands. She says she remembers his hands from when she used to visit her husband at the hospital. She asks him if he remembers her coming to visit and if he likes her hair the color it is now. She asks if she can looks at his hands closer and then starts to kiss them and suck on his fingers. She tells Steven that Martin is definitely asleep and he wants “this” just as much as she does. Fucking freak.
The next morning at work, Martin is waiting for Steven in his office and tells him that his heart aches and immediately takes off all of his clothes. Steven tells him that he has nothing to worry about but Martin is worried because heart conditions are hereditary. Steven assures him that he has nothing to worry about because his young. Martin says that he said the same thing about his dad and that his dad never drank or smoked and ate a healthy diet, but that he has taken up smoking cigarettes and didn’t sleep at all last night. Steven agrees to do some testing on Martin to check his heart. He starts to ask questions about chest and stomach hair and how the wires would be attached if had more body hair and asks Steven to show him his body hair to see if he actually has 3x as much as him. He asks Steven to come back over for dinner and Steven says he cannot, which causes Martin to tell Steven about how his mom has a great body and how they should be together. Steven is like hell nah man no thanks.
At a BBQ with the other doctors family, Steven takes a call from Martin where martin asks where Steven has been bc he has been calling, Steven is at the diner and demands to know where Steven is. Steven does not give in. The other doctor says he saw Martin the day before in the parking garage and said hi to him and Steven says that would not be possible and the other doctor is like yeah okay maybe a mistake. Kim comes into the living room to tell Steven that Martin brought her home from choir practice on his friend’s motorcycle and he asks Kim to not ride on one again without a helmet. Kim said Martin could not come inside because he had to get home but Steven calls him and Martin is still outside on the motorcycle staring at the house.
The next morning, Bob tells his dad he cannot get up to get ready for school because he cannot feel his legs. Steven and Anna rush Bob to the hospital. Bob gets evaluated by the neurologist where he says he can feel the doctor pushing a pin to his feet. Bob gets up and walks out the hospital with Anna and collapses at the end of the escalator after his parents tease him about maybe having a test at school he didn’t prepare for. Bob gets an MRI just like Anna suggested and it comes back fine. neuro says he is not worried and tells everyone to go home. Cut to Kim riding on the motorcycle again with Martin without a helmet. She tells Anna when she gets home that she was at her friend Claire’s. The next morning, Anna and Steven show up to Bob’s room to find Martin already there. He said Kim told him about what happened and whispers to Steven to meet him up in the cafeteria of the hospital where he gives Steven a cheap watch. Martin tells Steven very quickly that they both knew this day would come – Martin has to kill a family member of his because Steven killed a member of his family. He tells Steven that if he does not select a family member to kill in the next few days, then Anna and Kim and Bob will all die the same way. First, they will lose use of their legs. Second, refusal to eat to the point of starvation. Third, they will bleed from their eyes. Fourth, they will die.
Back in Bob’s hospital room, he refuses to eat the donuts Anna brought for him. At this point, only Steven knows what Martin has said. Steven tries to force feed Bob a donut and blames his legs not working on him not eating. He leaves. Back at home, Kim and Martin are all snuggled up in Kim’s room where Martin asks if she is on her period. She says no. she then starts to undress in from of Martin and proceeds to lay down on the bed EXACTLY how Anna laid down when she was pretending to be under anesthesia. Martin tells Kim he has to leave and Kim asks if he is upset with her because of her dad and he says no, he actually feels sorry for her dad not angry at him.
Back at the hospital, they run all of Bob’s tests again and they all come back fine. Anna mentions maybe this is some form of psychosomatic disorder and the neuro agrees with her. Steven tells her off because apparently her credentials as an opthomologist are not impressive to him at all. Later, Steven lifts Bob up and tells him to walk. Bob cannot use his legs, so Steven just keeps dropping him. Steven tells Bob he wants to play a game where they tell each other secrets. He tells Bob about his masturbation explorations and about how he was embarrassed about the amount of amount of ejaculation he could produce. He tells Bob that if Bob is just acting then he can admit it and no one will be mad and that if it is an act and he doesn’t come clean he will shave Bob’s head and make him eat his own hair.
The next morning, during choir practice, Kim collapses during Carol of the Bells. At the hospital, the other doctor consoles Anna while she cries. Kim chokes down one bite of fruit to please Steven and immediately spits it out. Steven goes to Martin’s house later and when no one answers the door, he says he will smash the door down and “fuck you and your mom just like you wanted” which I think is rape but okay. that night, he tells Anna the truth and Anna asks if he had been drinking when preforming the surgery on Martin’s dad. He doesn’t answer. She continues to ask questions about where they used to meet and other things. She asks him again if he had been drinking the day of the surgery and he says yes but only a little and that surgeons never kill a patient, but anesthesiologists do. He takes a shower at home and Bob wants to know when they are going home. Kim is now in the same room as Bob and asks if Martin came by while she was sleeping. Martin calls her from the oarking lot and Anna listens to the call. He tells her to walk to the window to see him and she does so successfully. When she gets to the window, Martin is gone.
Anna tells Kim not to talk to Martin anymore and Kim tells her to go fuck herself. Anna takes her phone away for being rude to her. Kim tells Anna not to get hysterical because sometimes you rest so much your body cannot sleep and what is most important is to have everything within reach, and that soon, Anna will not be able to move either, and she will get used to it. Steven tells Anna to go home and rest, but Anna decided she would rather go to Martin’s house instead. She goes inside to meet with Martin and talk to him. Martin tells Anna that ever since he killed his dad, he has been constantly flirting with his mom and that she has feelings for Steven too. She tells Martin that if Steven created this out of negligence then she doesn’t understand why her kids have to pay the price. So he tells her that when he was little, he was under the impression that only him and his dad used to eat spaghetti the same way but later realized that everyone eats their spaghetti the same and that made him more upset than when he found out his dad was dead. He says he doesn’t know if it is exactly fair, but it was basically the best he could come up with.
That night, Anna tells Steven she wants to sign the release forms in the morning so the kids can just go home because the hospital director said they cannot think of anything else to do. The next morning, Anna meets with the anesth to ask him about the surgery of Martin’s dad. he does not remember the patient because he does the same thing literally every day. She wants the file from the patient and he says he does in fact remember putting him under and will tell her a few things about the case, but wants something in return. She says she will give him what he did not get at the BBQ at his house. She gives this to him in the car. He tells her that Steven had been drinking during the surgery and could be to blame, and htat that anesth is never to blame for the bad outcome of the surgery, only the surgeon is. Steven had 2 drinks that morning before and that it was not unusual at the time but only he knew. This is all while Anna gives him a handjob, by the way.
Back at home, the kids are all set up in their hospital beds. While Steven eats, Anna stares at him and tells him he has beautiful hands and that he is just an incompetent man, and that yes she can make mashed potatoes and go to the beach out and all but their kids are in the other room dying and what good are his hands if they are lifeless. She says they are in this situation because of him and he then proceeds to throw a fit like a typical man and break plates and glasses and throw silverware after he tells his wife that they just need some recipe for a made up spell to make it all go away. Steven asks Anna to get up the next morning and follow him into the basement. He must have had a busy night because Martin is in the basement tied up. Anna goes upstairs to make some lemonade for Martin. Martin tells Steven that the only murderer in the situation is Steven. Martin bites the shit out of Steven’s arm and proceeds to bite off a very large piece of his own arm, to demonstate the metaphor of course. Anna goesto the garage to clean up the blood in the car when she hears a gunshot.
Steven has decided he wants to shoot Martin, but Martin tells him how will he explain to the police that 4 people are dead if he only shot one person? Kim smokes a cig upstairs and tells Bob she knows Steven did not kill Martin because it would be like killing 4 people with a single shot. “Wouldn’t that be tragic?” she says. She says she is going to live with Martin and that everyone loves Bob and that dad is in a difficult sitatuon and this is not because Steven doesn’t love Bob. She says that she has lost 2 MP3 players in the last 10 days and wants to know if she can have Bob’s when he dies. Bob drags his body across the house to the craft cabinet to get a pair of scissors to cut his hair. He then drags himself into the kitchen to show Steven how he has cut his hair. He tells his dad that he is so sorry that he didn’t cut his hair sooner and wants to go water the plants. Steven says he already did and that tomorrow he can do it. He tells Steven he wants to be cardiologist just like him because it is far more interesting and challenging than opthamology. Steven cries at night in the yard.
The next day, Steven goes to the school to meet with the principal to discuss his childen’s grades and behaviors at school. He asks the principal which kid he likes more, and the principal does not give him an answer. At home, the kids crawl into the basement to see Martin with Anna. Anna changes and dresses Martin’s wounds. He asks Bob if Bib will come and gives him a hug and Bob is like dude fuck you I cant walk. So then Anna gets on her knees and kisses Martin’s feet before picking up Bob to leave. He tells Anna that Bob is about to die, so if she wants to do something she better act fast. That night, she kisses and sucks on her husband’s hands before getting naked and pretending to be under anesthesia again. He turns off the lights and they cuddle. She tells Steven the most logival thing to do is kill one of them because they can just have another kid. Kim crawls down to see Martin and brings him a cig. She says they are all asleep and we can leave now and no one will notice. Steven wakes up in the middle of the night to find her out of her bed and completely out of the house. No idea how she got out. She tried to bargain with Martin that she will untie him if he makes her better. This is all happening while Steven dresses some wounds on Kim’s knees and begs him to kill her as a sacrifice for their family. They find her outside down the street. Again, no idea how she got out.
The next day, Anna tells Steven while he was at the hospital she let Martin go. He is super pissed but she says it wont make a difference if he is in the basement or not because they know what they have to do. While Anna gives Bob a sponge bath, Kim wont shut up about asking her if her legs hurt yet and all so Anna slaps the shit out of her. Bob’s eyes are bleeding the next morning and Kim says “Dad quick Bob’s dying”. He cleans up Bob’s eyes and tells Anna to come downstairs quick. He duct tapes them all to chairs and tapes their mouths and puts pillow cases over their eyes. He stands in the center of the living room with his rifle and puts a beanie over his eyes so he cannot see and turns in a circle until he gets dizzy. When he stops spinning, he shoots. The first time he shoots a lamp. The second time, he shoots something behind his wife. The third time, he shoots Bob. Steven then sees Martin at the diner with Anna and Kim. Kim and Anna and Steven are well and eating a meal. Martin watches Kim eat her friends while Martin drinks a cup of water. They all get up to leave while Martin stays behind in the diner.
And now, for the fact you always wait for! It is time to ask ourselves “what does it mean”? okay so there are two different approaches here to reach the same question of morality. The first is a direct reference to the Greek mythology surrounding Iphigenia. Iphigenia was the daughter of Agamemnon, and while setting up for the Trojan war, Agamemnon made Artemis angry because he had killed a sacred deer. Artemis is the goddess of wild animals/the hunt/chastity/childbirth. So Artemis stopped all of the winds out of her anger so that the ships would not be able to set sail for the war. Artemis then ordered Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, in exchange for the killing of the deer. That is where our reference comes from for the title of the film. Martin sees that Steven is responsible for the death of his father, and orders Steven to sacrifice one of his children to settle the debt.
The other approach that came to mind for me almost immediately was the “trolly problem”. The trolly problem is a thought experiment that goes a little something like this: “you are riding in a trolley without functioning brakes, headed toward a switch in the tracks. On the current track stand five people who stand to be killed if the trolley continues its path. You have access to a switch that would make the trolley change to the other track, but another individual stands there. That person is certain to be killed if the switch is activated.” So, would switch the tracks? Killing the one person and saving the five people is a utilitarian idea, meaning the action results in the most good for the most amount of people. But, from the deontological perspective, we have to examine the “rightness” and “wrongness” of each action. This school of thought argues that it would be worse to kill five people to save one person because making the active decision to kill something is wrong inherently. This is where my mind was at almost the whole movie. At first, Steven takes the deontological standpoint and chooses inaction over action. He is not inflicting the death on his family members intentionally, the disease is. Just like I would not be killing five people by not changing tracks, the trolley would kill them. At the final moment though, Steven does decide that the closer the trolley gets to the group of people, he must take the utilitarian approach to kill one person to save the others. I think that the utilitarian approach makes the most sense for Steven’s character, given the use and connotation of utilitarian approaches.
The amazing part about this movie is that we never get an explanation for the rules of this game that Martin has set up for the Murphy family. The audience never finds out who or what is the driving factor behind the 4 stages of death each family member will go through. We only know that those are the stages because that is what we are told. There is no opportunity to ask questions. I am personally okay with this type of set up in a film, but I can see where others will find this upsetting. The lack of detail, that is. I love the cold setting of the hospital, bleak and white and sterile. I think it is a nice juxtaposition to the home of the Murphy family, which feels warm by the style and layout and décor, but the “warmth” you would feel from a loving family is completely absent. The characters deliver every single line devoid of all emotion. Their voices are monotonous and matter of fact. They show no feeling and only discuss things in a logical manner. Like yes, it is logical that there will be an extra MP3 player when Bob dies, but there is no need for Kim to say something like that flatly to Bob. The entire dialogue is full of these types of exchanges – one character says something totally off the wall and not socially appropriate, and no one reacts to it. at all. This is what makes the movie elevated and psychological horror – you spend the whole movie questioning the reality that the characters live in and comparing it to your own.
Each family member attempts to show Steven why they are worthy of living and do their best to stay in his good graces because he makes the ultimate decision. Anna wears her best black dress and tries to have sex with Steven while their children lay downstairs dying. Bob cuts his hair and attempts to go water the plants. Kim pleads with her father to let her be the one to sacrifice herself to stay in his good graces and admire her courage. None of them want to die. However, it is interesting that Steven did not really “pick” someone to kill. He did not want to consciously select a family member, so his spinning with a loaded gun in the living room blindfolded technique did not really satisfy the conditions. This could be why Martin is still hanging around the family by going to the diner in the end of the movie. He knows that Steven likes that place and instead of avoiding the family and the diner altogether, he chooses to approach the situation head on. Martin being the reason why the Murphy family leaves the diner means that he still has some sort of power over the family in a way that they cannot face. And he sits above them at a bar stool, which is taller in height than the booths the Murphys sit on, and displaying that he is still above the family in the sense that Steven’s sacrifice was not enough.
