This really took me by surprise. In a TV series I like something that captivates and makes me want to hang out for the next episode, this does just that. There has a creepiness to this series that is akin to a cult/sect. Three "Sisters" have been living on a cliff side monastery for quite some time and are not fans of change. A priest comes to let them know that they must move out as the church that owns the site has other plans for it. A Kathy Bates "Misery" style scenario occurs, and the priest wants out! I don't want to give away too much, but this is a neat TV series, I'm hooked. 8/10 from me.
42 Reviews
A wonderful gothic fable
wyndham-0484329 July 2019
This is not cinema verite and does not pretend to be. It is a fable; a morality tale, wonderfully told. It will be uncomfortable for some people for different reasons. But the human characters and their interactions are very credible and there is therefore a deeper reality in the show - assisted by a great cast and wonderful sets.
What a wonderfull series
darcek3 August 2019
This series is full of surprises!!
What you are led to believe is changed constantly,the plot goes from drama,to horror to fantasy to thriller to drama,its dynamic and ever flowing..
On top of that top notch acting,director and everything is just wrapped with beautiful photography.
Highly recommended this gem of a series.
On top of that top notch acting,director and everything is just wrapped with beautiful photography.
Highly recommended this gem of a series.
Quirky and refreshing
MadamWarden7 August 2019
You should have kept watching...
vyctorya5823 July 2019
Warning: Spoilers
That scene from the slaughtering of the lambs, to when the priest meets the three sisters, with all that on thier face, was pretty much the worst as far as gory goes... from then on, it was quite a psychological thrill.
This show is smart, has interesting story lines that aren't the usual fare, and is suspenseful at the same time... I kept wondering what was going to befall that poor priest next! 😱
Definitely one of my new favorites! 😁
The acting is outstanding
szucszsolt10 August 2019
Mesmerizing
Bored_Dragon29 April 2020
"Lambs of God" is an Australian Gothic drama about three nuns living in the ruins of an island monastery, cut off from and nonexistent to the world, until the Church decides to sell the property to build a luxury hotel. The young priest, Bishop's secretary, comes to scout the officially abandoned ruin, and the situation develops in, for both sides, completely unexpected direction.
The film combines drama, thriller and psychological horror, with a touch of fantasy and romance. The story is multi-layered and powerful, with just the right amount of mystery and plot twists. Beautiful photography and quality directing fall into the shadow of the fantastic acting of all four main actors, whose performances bring a captivating restlessness to the heart. I watched four hours in one breath, sitting on the edge of the chair quite a lot, and impressions after viewing will not soon fade.
9/10
The film combines drama, thriller and psychological horror, with a touch of fantasy and romance. The story is multi-layered and powerful, with just the right amount of mystery and plot twists. Beautiful photography and quality directing fall into the shadow of the fantastic acting of all four main actors, whose performances bring a captivating restlessness to the heart. I watched four hours in one breath, sitting on the edge of the chair quite a lot, and impressions after viewing will not soon fade.
9/10
knitting
Kirpianuscus7 January 2020
A Gothic serie. It is the first definition. Wrong, because, because it is not part of a genre. It can be perceived as parable or as embroidery of themes and motifs. And, no doubt, it is. But it gives a splendid photography, the island from childhood and a precious gift - a special state. Episode by episode , you discover it as a sort of knit. And that did it special. Like a large fresco, like a mix of faith and magic, like perfect frame for old and new romance. For me, it was more than a pleasant surprise. Because, in essence it is the serie who, without have ambition to impress, gives the fair story. And the great job of Essie Davis,Ann Dwd , Jessica Barden and Sam Reid, near the sheeps and location are the good pillars of this just beautiful mini- serie.
Too flawed to be serious
philfeeley25 July 2019
Well-acted, I can say that much. But the writing! Whoever conceived of this has got a mad on for the church - just like many other haters of the past. Such a convent would never have been invented, and if it did, it would die out quickly - so far from the truth of the Gospel was it.
Too bad. Actors wasted, production techniques gone to spoil. The efforts should have gone into a better tale.
Too bad. Actors wasted, production techniques gone to spoil. The efforts should have gone into a better tale.
Wonderful, different , great storytelling.
kerrysimpson-6275529 July 2019
Ann Dowd , who is fast becoming one of my favourite actresses, Essie Davis, Jessica Barden and Sam Reid really give it their all in this very strange ( but well written ) story . It has to be one of the best this year .
Fantasy not fantastic
xmasdaybaby196611 April 2022
Unless you are a new age hippie, a teenage geek or goth into dungeons and dragons, you won't watch this til the end. Unfortunately, I did.
Yes, there is a bit of humour in the first episode and a couple of wanking scenes to excite the teenagers but there is little here for the religious or even those of us of common sense.
Yes, the feminists will live the heroes but a a middle aged bloke this seemed like dress Set in Britain but made in Australia (they show a couple of vehicles with UK number plates and UK road Atlas but the terrain is obviously not Britain).
How Britbox got involved is beyond me. They are supposed to be promoting UK talent. There are a couple of British actors but that is a lame excuse for their input.
Don't waste your time if you are a realist.
Yes, there is a bit of humour in the first episode and a couple of wanking scenes to excite the teenagers but there is little here for the religious or even those of us of common sense.
Yes, the feminists will live the heroes but a a middle aged bloke this seemed like dress Set in Britain but made in Australia (they show a couple of vehicles with UK number plates and UK road Atlas but the terrain is obviously not Britain).
How Britbox got involved is beyond me. They are supposed to be promoting UK talent. There are a couple of British actors but that is a lame excuse for their input.
Don't waste your time if you are a realist.
Took me by surprise.
oseholic3 August 2019
At the time I started this series, I didn't expect it to turn out as interesting as it it. I totally recommend it to everyone. It's fast-paced, captivating, has a great plot, with a satisfying ending. I absolutely loved it and it's in my top 5 favorites now. More of this!
A no, for me
KittieC7 August 2019
I'm surprised that a number of reviewers have responded so positively, but I was disappointed.
Part gothic horror, part detective story, part family saga, part examination of the tribulations of the Catholic church and its treatment of children and women, part love story (of God and of people) - so many parts, but for me, not enough solid connective tissue to make the whole thing work really well.
It's beautifully shot, although the logistics of the set make absolutely no sense (that land bridge wouldn't get a tank across, let alone a sedan!). Ann Dowd in particular doubles down totally into the marginal insanity of her particular character. Jessica Barden's twitchy novice is believable around half the time and the redoubtable Essie Davis is great in spite of the unnecessary eyeball prosthetics. Poor Sam Reid looks sensational as the Priest With A Past and his ab workouts are taken well advantage of.
I feel like there was a lot of components that may have worked brilliantly on the page, but didn't quite make a successful translation to the screen.
It's not the worst thing I've ever seen - not by a long shot - and I'm glad to have seen it but in my opinion it was a disappointing use of some great talent.
I really like the nun's knitted habits though.
Absolute perfection ...
mklimkov1 September 2019
I entirely enjoyed this show. It's partly a fairytale - a fable. It's innocent, yet wise, it's unrealistic as well as seated deeply in reality. It's sad and shocking and happy and silly and it's full of life.
It's part a fairytale, part reality that is somehow seamlessly joined and combined into incredible story full of feelings, passion, magic, and harsh reality.
The actors are absolutely amazing. The casting was superb! All the actresses and actors fill the shoes of the characters perfectly
The cinematography is lovely and location of the story is just gorgeous.
I can only can only speak in superlatives about this show and I would recommend (most) people to watch this. I would say this show is rather niche and won't appeal to everyone ...
It's part a fairytale, part reality that is somehow seamlessly joined and combined into incredible story full of feelings, passion, magic, and harsh reality.
The actors are absolutely amazing. The casting was superb! All the actresses and actors fill the shoes of the characters perfectly
The cinematography is lovely and location of the story is just gorgeous.
I can only can only speak in superlatives about this show and I would recommend (most) people to watch this. I would say this show is rather niche and won't appeal to everyone ...
A beautiful wonderfull story
tomekweb-177-16175830 July 2019
A compassionate tale
tariqzafar-1202028 December 2020
It was pleasantly surprising to watch this mini series. The show has underlying theme of imperialism and expansionism by powerful beings taking down the natives by hook or by crook. The three nuns represent the natives who live on a forgotten state practicing their beliefs as Nuns of St Agnes while the Church acts as an intrusive powerful body ready to take them down. But its interesting to see how things play out.
Handmaid's Tale Meets Shawshank Redemption - with a touch of Bally-K!
mark-4914722 July 2019
With Ann Dowd playing a key role in a show that shows no fear in examining the actual and potential victimisation of women by organised religion and the complicated,often divisive role that faith plays in gender dynamics, the comparisons with Handmaids Tale are inevitable. But whereas Handmaid takes a journey through a harrowing Orwellian dystopia, Lambs of God takes us back to the early Nineties and reminds us what life was like so very recently and so very long ago. The differences do not end there with Lambs offering a female-led redemption to the problems men cannot help but create for themselves in trying to run a world with only one (male) voice. The satire is as disturbing as it is hilarious and the mainly female cast carry the narrative, passing it between them in a whirlwind - showing skill, dexterity and team spirit in their performances that is sure to draw crowds of adoring fans and which might make their counterparts in the 'men's game' take note. The show is full-on for the first two episodes and may deter some, but persevere because it's also full of of laugh-out-loud moments; uncomfortably accurate in their depiction of all that is not to like in institutions run by men - for other men.
Though unselfconsciously pointing a long-overdue flashlight at some the hypocrisy, condescension and worse, that women face up to every day in a patriarchal society, the show is not just riding the #MeToo zeitgeist. Sarah Lambert's objective is not to promote empowerment for its own sake - and her message is not one of division or revenge, but of healing and humour with the male and female protagonists each undertaking their own personal journey of Shawshank(like) redemption. Like in Shawshank, there are numerous twists and some lovely reveals throughout the four episodes that keep you guessing - and wrong-foot the unwary viewer. If the end offers as many satisfying feel-good moments as an episode of Ballykissangel, then more power to it. After all, who can really sit through another season of Handmaid!
Well done Sarah Lambert for this clever adaptation of a book written before its time, and look out world!
Though unselfconsciously pointing a long-overdue flashlight at some the hypocrisy, condescension and worse, that women face up to every day in a patriarchal society, the show is not just riding the #MeToo zeitgeist. Sarah Lambert's objective is not to promote empowerment for its own sake - and her message is not one of division or revenge, but of healing and humour with the male and female protagonists each undertaking their own personal journey of Shawshank(like) redemption. Like in Shawshank, there are numerous twists and some lovely reveals throughout the four episodes that keep you guessing - and wrong-foot the unwary viewer. If the end offers as many satisfying feel-good moments as an episode of Ballykissangel, then more power to it. After all, who can really sit through another season of Handmaid!
Well done Sarah Lambert for this clever adaptation of a book written before its time, and look out world!
Utter psychotic nonsense!
Big_Joakim12 August 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Are the nuns suppose to be the good guys in this series? With some kind of 'feminist sisterhood' theme in mind, honoring their convent and their 'holy mother' (it seems more like a nature goddess of some sort than the virgin Mary) against the patriarchal catholic church (represented by the priest)? That was my first impression.
At first I can sort of accept their strange customs, for example the sheep slaughtering and using its blood in som kind of perverted eucharistic meal. The convent have been without contact with the church for a long time and therefore probably have developed its own strange theology, for example the belief that lambs that are born are reincarnated religious sisters.
But as the series move on it becomes clear that the nuns are total psychos who seems to find new cruel methods by each day to keep the priest from returning to the mainland and report about their convent. In a rage, after the youngest nun puts her hand on him (he's tied down), he blames women (and specifically the nuns) for being 'cause of sin'. It's classic Christian theology about the sinfulness of women. Not very nice.
BUT WTF, COULD YOU BLAME HIM!? He's being restrained, abused, getting his hair cut of, tied down to the ground in a cruxifiction-like position by the nuns!
The nuns find out that the plans are to build a fancy hotel complex on the island (but preserving the convent ruins as a special hotel experience). And the nuns become obsessed with preserving their weird semi-christian monastic lives in the dilapitated ruins.
The priest is no saint either. But these nuns doesn't know anything about that. They are just crazy psychopaths, and probably schizofrenic too because the 'see' tings and hear voices. And they are so bound to their vows to stay in their convent that they cannot even take the priest to the hospital after the youngest nun tries to kill him. Since when does a nun consider such vows to be more holy than saving a human life!?
In the end it turns out that it's the other priests and clerics that are the real scums of the series. Of course it is the men who are the bad guys after all. The nuns learn that the priest they are holding captive is actually a pretty decent guy (but first he has to 'become a sister', one of them and his even called 'my daughter' by one of the elderly nuns). The priest starts to like the nuns aswell though. The priest and the youngest nun even have some makeup sex in the end. Lovey-dovey.
The only really sane people in the series is the priest's sister who tries her best to find him when he goes missing, and the policeman helping her.
The series is utter NONSENSE! It was hard to care about any of the characters. Almost everyone seems crazy, depressed, selfish, confused and ignorant.
Personally I'd much rather see a nice hotel with a fantastic convent ruin at that beautiful island than preserving some odd, blood-drinking religious order. The nuns could just have moved some place else (as they were offered when the priest first arrived to the convent). But then, it would've been hard for them to sacrifice sheeps and drink their blood in some other 'normal' convent. Idiots.
At first I can sort of accept their strange customs, for example the sheep slaughtering and using its blood in som kind of perverted eucharistic meal. The convent have been without contact with the church for a long time and therefore probably have developed its own strange theology, for example the belief that lambs that are born are reincarnated religious sisters.
But as the series move on it becomes clear that the nuns are total psychos who seems to find new cruel methods by each day to keep the priest from returning to the mainland and report about their convent. In a rage, after the youngest nun puts her hand on him (he's tied down), he blames women (and specifically the nuns) for being 'cause of sin'. It's classic Christian theology about the sinfulness of women. Not very nice.
BUT WTF, COULD YOU BLAME HIM!? He's being restrained, abused, getting his hair cut of, tied down to the ground in a cruxifiction-like position by the nuns!
The nuns find out that the plans are to build a fancy hotel complex on the island (but preserving the convent ruins as a special hotel experience). And the nuns become obsessed with preserving their weird semi-christian monastic lives in the dilapitated ruins.
The priest is no saint either. But these nuns doesn't know anything about that. They are just crazy psychopaths, and probably schizofrenic too because the 'see' tings and hear voices. And they are so bound to their vows to stay in their convent that they cannot even take the priest to the hospital after the youngest nun tries to kill him. Since when does a nun consider such vows to be more holy than saving a human life!?
In the end it turns out that it's the other priests and clerics that are the real scums of the series. Of course it is the men who are the bad guys after all. The nuns learn that the priest they are holding captive is actually a pretty decent guy (but first he has to 'become a sister', one of them and his even called 'my daughter' by one of the elderly nuns). The priest starts to like the nuns aswell though. The priest and the youngest nun even have some makeup sex in the end. Lovey-dovey.
The only really sane people in the series is the priest's sister who tries her best to find him when he goes missing, and the policeman helping her.
The series is utter NONSENSE! It was hard to care about any of the characters. Almost everyone seems crazy, depressed, selfish, confused and ignorant.
Personally I'd much rather see a nice hotel with a fantastic convent ruin at that beautiful island than preserving some odd, blood-drinking religious order. The nuns could just have moved some place else (as they were offered when the priest first arrived to the convent). But then, it would've been hard for them to sacrifice sheeps and drink their blood in some other 'normal' convent. Idiots.
Best series of 2019!
officialbronwyn23 July 2019
Stongly recommend!
iraklidal-524532 August 2019
Brilliant
tbhamfog22 August 2019
This is the best show I have seen all year. All the actors are amazing. All the characters a complete human beings. Such a great story. In an age where every show seems to be reaching for a second season I liked being left wanting more but knowing that the story had been told.
Watch it, watch it.
Blayerx15 January 2020
would have been 10 stars
smoke023 May 2020
Warning: Spoilers
..except for one plot point that had me a bit confused, exactly how and when does one get to the ruins anyway? At one point it seems all one needs to do is just take a short walk into or out of town?
Other than that, this series was perfection; just when I thought this was going to be Misery Beguiled, it twists and turns into something else again and then again; the religious aspects are not intrusive, seeming more universal and almost pagan; characters are not who you think they are, then they are, then they aren't, and the whole story comes together perfectly at the end.
Other than that, this series was perfection; just when I thought this was going to be Misery Beguiled, it twists and turns into something else again and then again; the religious aspects are not intrusive, seeming more universal and almost pagan; characters are not who you think they are, then they are, then they aren't, and the whole story comes together perfectly at the end.
Tryhard Tripe
jamieparsons112 September 2019
Warning: Spoilers
As with a lot of 'serious' Australian drama series, this tries to hard to be like the big HBO and Showcase type shows from the US.
The main characters are utterly despicable, there's weirdness for the sake of weirdness and of course, sex. I mean a series about a priest and three nuns, why wouldn't there be sex?
Besides that, there's nothing here storywise. Three crazy nuns capture a visiting priest for silly reasons then torture him. After an unsuccessful escape attempt the priest becomes sexually attracted to the youngest nun and then joins them in their idiocy. A search is raised for the priest, but they give up.
Pros - some decent acting, nice scenery, music is pretty good. No over-the-top Aussie accents like there usually is in Aussie productions.
The main characters are utterly despicable, there's weirdness for the sake of weirdness and of course, sex. I mean a series about a priest and three nuns, why wouldn't there be sex?
Besides that, there's nothing here storywise. Three crazy nuns capture a visiting priest for silly reasons then torture him. After an unsuccessful escape attempt the priest becomes sexually attracted to the youngest nun and then joins them in their idiocy. A search is raised for the priest, but they give up.
Pros - some decent acting, nice scenery, music is pretty good. No over-the-top Aussie accents like there usually is in Aussie productions.
B. E. A. Utiful. Thank you
jayclaurence25 March 2020
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