Meaning behind the deer in Netflix's Leave The World Behind

Unless you've been living under rock for the past few days, then you'll know that Netflix has finally dropped its eagerly-anticipated psychological-thriller, Leave The World Behind.

It's been on the streaming platform for less than a week, but it's clear viewers are already obsessed with many rushing to share their fan theories on all the hidden meanings peppered throughout the flick.

Since then, the meaning behind the recurring trope of deer in Leave The World Behind has finally been explained by the film's director himself.

Check out the trailer here:

The official premise for Leave The World Behind reads: "A family vacation on Long Island is interrupted by two strangers bearing news of a mysterious blackout.

"As the threat grows more imminent, both families must decide how best to survive the potential crisis, all while grappling with their own place in this collapsing world."

Boasting a star-studded cast including Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, Myha’la and Kevin Bacon, the flick is directed and produced by Sam Esmail and is based on the 2020 novel of the same name by Rumaan Alam.

And fans clearly couldn't wait to give it a watch and, unsurprisingly, viewers were left 'disturbed to the core', slightly 'cheated' by the ending and debated over the 'real message' behind the film - with many looking elsewhere at other recurring tropes to seek out some deeper symbolism.

And in all, it's a lot of emotions.

Now, without giving too much of the plot away incase you haven't given it a go yet, the film features a few deer appearances throughout and it framed as an oddly threatening gesture from the typically harmless animals, as Clay Sandford (Hawke) points out.

And director Esmail has revealed the meaning behind their presence, telling Tudum: "Deer are peaceful creatures.

"To turn that sweet image into now this sort of ominous, menacing, almost warning — I thought was really interesting.

"That’s the trick about this movie. We always tried to take the things that we never really considered a threat and then turn it around on them."

The deer in question were also 'all digital', Esmail adds.

Who let out the Leave the World Behind deer!!!? pic.twitter.com/eEvMW0BmXc

— Netflix (@netflix) December 10, 2023

"It's a testament to Chris Harvey, my VFX supervisor; Dione [Wood], my VFX producer; and Alec [Hart], who’s on the VFX team," he went on to say.

"They knew that we wanted to make the deer feel as real as possible, and they were on set.

"We had mock-ups there so that the actors had something to play off of, and we made sure that the lighting on the fur [was] as accurate as possible."

Leave The World Behind is currently available to stream on Netflix.