Movie Review: ‘We Are What We Are’
Directed by: Jim Mickle
Starring: Bill Sage, Ambyr Childers, Julia Garner, and Michael Parks
Plot: The Parkers, a family with a secret tradition, run the risk of being exposed after the death of one of their members.
Review:
A while back I wrote an article titled 10 MORE Directors of the Now (to coincide with a series of articles by G-Funk). If I could go back and include someone I missed, it would be Jim Mickle. I still haven’t seen his first movie, Mulberry Street, but his vampire doomsday epic, Stake Land, is probably one of the best horror movies of the last few years. Between Stake Land, this movie, and his new crime thriller, Cold in July, that is getting good buzz at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, he is definitely a new name to look out for.
One of the biggest reasons for that is because he is making horror movies in a way that most people have stopped. He invests a lot of time and energy into slowly cultivating dread and an overall feeling of unease rather than attack your senses with viscera and jump-scares. Not to say that those elements are gone, but he actually backs them up with a level writing and acting horror movies nowadays just phone in.
Here, he reteams with his writing partner and occasional actor, Nick Damici, to remake a 2010 Mexican film of the same name. I haven’t seen it, but from what I have heard, the motivation for the secret tradition has been changed from economic desperation to religious extremism. As much as the economic desperation would be very relevant in this day and age, religious extremism is always such a great horror stand-by. The way that people are hesitant to let go of their beliefs and traditions no matter how strange or dangerous is always easy lampshading. Mix that with the biblical amount of rain that is falling during the entire movie, and it is just symbolic bad omen after bad omen.
As the story goes, the trouble starts when Alyce Parker dies mysteriously while shopping for groceries. Her strict husband, Frank (American Pyscho‘s Bill Sage) , is now left alone with their 2 teenage daughters (Ambyr Childers and Julia Garner) and their young son. Frank rules the house with an iron-fist and a unflinching loyalty to his family traditions. Those traditions are meant to be performed by the matriarch, so the task falls to Frank’s daughters. Childers and Garner carry much of the dramatic weight with a chilly, disappointed silence. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the local coroner, Doc Barrow (played excellently by Michael Parks) starts independently investigating the family.
A lot of the time, people act like horror is treated unfairly by the more pretentious organizations for not getting credit where credit is due, but I’m pretty sure that’s horror’s fault. They are way to complacent with not trying hard enough. There are so many uninspired remakes and bad sequels and found footage schedule fillers. Let’s face it, horror does get credit when it is warranted. The Exorcist. Rosemary’s Baby. Silence of the Lambs. We Are What We Are isn’t quite on their level, but you can see the potential. If anyone can bring contemporary horror out of its rut, I’m betting on Jim Mickle.
Rating: 8/10
By and large, I don’t care for horror. It’s frequently crap happening to women, and they’re screaming, and there’s frequently rape or other kind of sexual trauma is there (which is scary, to be sure, but it’s not entertaining). However, a kind of horror that is suggested or implied, that builds on an implied if unseen dread, I don’t mind. (For reference, if you saw BBC Sherlock’s Hound of the Baskervilles, I was truly scared when I first saw it.) Are there other movies like that you can recommend? Recent ones?
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Try The Innkeepers. The main character is a female, but I think its less of the stuff you don’t like. Lots of dread building.
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I don’t know of any recent ones, but I would check out The Shining. I know way too much about that movie and will swear up and down it’s one of the greatest movies ever made. The movie is filled with subliminal messaging and a bunch of ridiculous crap that you will consciously miss, so there is a huge sense of dread and general discomfort. There is a bit where a chick is screaming, but the movie isn’t about her even a little bit. The stuff is happening to the husband and the kid. Also, Poltergeist. The Thing (1982). Those ones are great. The only recent horror movies I’ve seen I think are Mama and The Conjuring. Both were very well done. They aren’t the gory running around screaming types. Both do a very good job with the dread.
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This is getting good write ups! I am absolutely petrified of watching horror movies, and recently decided to remedy it by doing a horror movie challenge, in which I offered my readers the chance to suggest a movie for me to watch. I now have to brave The Conjuring which I am not looking forward to.
My question is this, will I be scared if I watch this movie? Because it sounds really good, but I hate being scared! I can handle gore and violence, but I hate the whole ‘quiet, quiet, quiet BANG’ kind of thing!
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That kind of scare I refer to as a “jump-scare” in the review. There’s a few of them in this movie, but it has more to offer
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I enjoyed this!
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Alyce Parker was the name of the Parker family ancestor from the 1780s. Emma Parker was the modern day Parker matriarch.
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