WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Other Lamb, now streaming on VOD.
The Other Lamb is a psychological thriller delving into an all-female cult known as the Flock in what seems to be a rural part of America in the early 20th century. The commune's run by a male leader, Shepherd (Michael Huisman), a Jesus-like figure who holds sermons, and as the film proceeds, beds various women as part of a rite of passage.
He does this is so the daughters he has with the older women can now become part of the wives' circle, painting a jarring picture of incest, sadistic mental conditioning and physical abuse. However, midway through the film, viewers are introduced to Sarah (Denise Gough), aka the Cursed Wife, an outcast who drastically alters the fate of the Flock.
Shepherd targets his favorite daughter Selah (Raffey Cassidy) to be his next wife. He wants to deflower his daughters just before menstruation but he misses Selah's cycle, and grows angry, banishing her to an outhouse until she's "pure" again. There, she meets Sarah, clad in dirty red clothes indicating she hasn't been offered a bathe for a while. In fact, she's barely fed food and water, treated like a dog and Selah, after being told she's evil, scorns her.
Selah eventually takes an interest, however, because the wives wear red and the daughters blue, so the fact Sarah still has red means she must be considered a wife. But Sarah reveals she's the Cursed Wife, the black sheep of the Flock because she doesn't bend to the master's will anymore. Selah hopes to find out the exact reason but the camp has to move on as cops intervene and tell the man he has to take his commune elsewhere, revealing this actually takes place in modern-day society. Shepherd simply hid his women away and created this pagan life so he could continue gaslighting them after they came to him "desperate and broken," ready to absorb in his "good word."
As they journey to the new lakeside commune, viewers witness the leader physically beating wives who struggle to make the trek and Selah's eyes open as she sees his rapist side unfolding. It plays into what Sarah says about him not being a god, but a devil. Sarah eventually reveals he lied about Selah's mom -- she didn't die giving birth, he killed her. Selah doesn't believe her and thinks these lies are why she's been treated like a leper but it comes undone when one of the young women gives birth on the trek.
She dies during childbirth and after being placed on a pyre, her young daughter doesn't want to say goodbye. But Sheperd grabs and tosses the kid away with zero compassion to hustle up the cremation. One can tell he thinks this wife was weak but the big twist comes with regard to the newborn. As the Flock leaves, Sarah reveals she's been kicked out because she didn't allow Sheperd to leave the baby, a boy, behind to die. He only wants women as followers so obviously boys can't be taken on the trip. Selah's in shock as she now understands the monster she's dealing with, and wonders if mothers like hers were killed off because they made boys.
Sarah doesn't confirm this but Selah can sense some guilt in her. It seems Sarah actually helped kill boys in the past, and maybe even wives too. It would explain why she's been kept away from the Flock as she was Sheperd's lackey and someone he hoped would come back to his side to continue helping him do the dirty work. Selah can't bring herself to ask how Sarah knows so much about her own mother's death but suspects the woman had a part to play in it. Sarah has tremendous PTSD and apart from being subjugated, she may well have been an executor who's now trying to atone by enlightening future victims.
Selah has a sense of empathy and sorrow, though, and leaves her behind as they move on. But as she sees Sarah cradling the kid and heading for greener pastures, cryptic clues in the Cursed Wife's words also insinuate another massive sin she committed -- killing her own son at Sheperd's request, breaking her out of his control and thus, leaving her on the fringes. As she leaves Sarah behind, this becomes the catalyst for Selah to become a rebel herself.
The Other Lamb, directed by Małgorzata Szumowska and written by C.S. McMullen, is now available on VOD. It stars Raffey Cassidy, Michiel Huisman, and Denise Gough.