Somos Lo Que Hay (We Are What We Are) (2010)
We Are What We Are is a tasty mix of social/political satire, Art house sensibilities, and Exploitation style violence.
The movie opens with a shabby looking man stumbling through a busy shopping district. He stops to look at the manikins in a fashionable clothing store, before being shooed away. He suddenly falls to the ground, and begins throwing up blood. he convulses and dies. Within seconds his body is dragged away, a janitor mops up the blood, and disinterested shoppers stroll through, unaware that anything has happened.
Director Jorge Michel Grau introduces us to a world of invisible people. The main characters are the family of the dead man. They are a group of cannibals who hunt down, kill, and eat the disenfranchised. Well, they mostly did the eating. It was the father who was the hunter, and with him dead the family is thrown into crisis. The eldest son, Alfredo believes he should become the new provider, but his initial attempts don't work out very well. When he and his brother, Julián try to catch a homeless child, they are attacked and driven off by the other children. next they kidnap a prostitute, but their mother becomes enraged, claiming that the prostitute is not appropriate for their needs, which involves a ritual of some kind.
The film plays out slowly, spending more time on the internal dynamics of the family than it does on the plot movements we're used to in a genre flick. Eventually though, the pieces fall into place. Two cops begin investigating the murders because they hope the lurid nature of the crimes will attract the kind of attention that leads to promotions. The prostitutes band together for their own safety(they can't expect any help from the lazy, and corrupt cops), and go in search of revenge. All the while the family's internal struggles come to a head.
Don't come to We Are What We Are if you're looking for typical slasher stuff, but if you can handle a slow film with a lot of ambiguities, and moments of shocking violence, this film has much to offer. The acting is strong and naturalistic, with a lot of the movie playing out like a social drama. The cinematography is beautiful. And if you like your horror mixed up with social commentary in the George A. Romero style, you might end up loving this as much as I did.
We Are What We Are is a tasty mix of social/political satire, Art house sensibilities, and Exploitation style violence.
The movie opens with a shabby looking man stumbling through a busy shopping district. He stops to look at the manikins in a fashionable clothing store, before being shooed away. He suddenly falls to the ground, and begins throwing up blood. he convulses and dies. Within seconds his body is dragged away, a janitor mops up the blood, and disinterested shoppers stroll through, unaware that anything has happened.
Director Jorge Michel Grau introduces us to a world of invisible people. The main characters are the family of the dead man. They are a group of cannibals who hunt down, kill, and eat the disenfranchised. Well, they mostly did the eating. It was the father who was the hunter, and with him dead the family is thrown into crisis. The eldest son, Alfredo believes he should become the new provider, but his initial attempts don't work out very well. When he and his brother, Julián try to catch a homeless child, they are attacked and driven off by the other children. next they kidnap a prostitute, but their mother becomes enraged, claiming that the prostitute is not appropriate for their needs, which involves a ritual of some kind.
The film plays out slowly, spending more time on the internal dynamics of the family than it does on the plot movements we're used to in a genre flick. Eventually though, the pieces fall into place. Two cops begin investigating the murders because they hope the lurid nature of the crimes will attract the kind of attention that leads to promotions. The prostitutes band together for their own safety(they can't expect any help from the lazy, and corrupt cops), and go in search of revenge. All the while the family's internal struggles come to a head.
Don't come to We Are What We Are if you're looking for typical slasher stuff, but if you can handle a slow film with a lot of ambiguities, and moments of shocking violence, this film has much to offer. The acting is strong and naturalistic, with a lot of the movie playing out like a social drama. The cinematography is beautiful. And if you like your horror mixed up with social commentary in the George A. Romero style, you might end up loving this as much as I did.
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