The Goat and Her Three Kids

Victor Canache's 2022 Romanian film turns a well known folk tale by Ion Creangă into horror. In the nineteenth century, in an isolated village, a widow lives with her three children; a man claiming to be an old friend of her husband comes to the house and, seeing them defenceless, shows what he is. The figure who is a wolf in the tale is a man here, and that change is where the film makes its point: the danger comes not from the wild but from someone known. The story builds slowly, the tension grows out of the imbalance of power inside the house, and when the violence arrives it is shown at length. Maia Morgenstern carries the weight as the mother. It was made at a time when genre attempts were rare in Romanian cinema and drew attention at home. Who it's for: viewers who like slow-built horror and adaptations of folk tales. Who it's not for: anyone who would rather not approach violence against children and scenes of torture; the film does not avoid showing them.