REVIEW: DVD Release: We Are What We Are

Film: We Are What We Are
Release date: 21st March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Jorge Michel Grau
Starring: Francisco Barreiro, Alan Chávez, Paulina Gaitán, Carmen Beato, Jorge Zárate
Genre: Drama/Horror/Thriller
Studio: Chelsea
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: Mexico

We Are What We Are is Jorge Michel Grau's independently produced, genre-bending shocker, acclaimed as the Mexican Let The Right One In (2008). With big shoes to fill, has this grisly satire got the stomach to compete with one of the greatest horror films of recent times?

Dying in the middle of a shopping mall, a middle-aged man leaves his widow, two sons and daughter destitute. Not only will the devastated family have to cope with their terrible loss, but without a breadwinner in the house, they also face a massive challenge.

Not that bread will satisfy this family of cannibals, driven to eat human flesh in the Latin American urban jungle rife with poverty and corruption. Justifying their bizarre diet with ritual blood ceremonies is one thing, but now they must decide who will provide the victims now that father has gone.

The task falls to the eldest son, Alfredo, yet he's far from ready to accept the challenge, carrying a secret that will rip a hole through his family, thus finally supplying the desperate police force with a recipe for success…


You know that you’re on to something good when you’re rooting for a bunch of flesh-eating cannibals. Either that or the other characters are so unpleasant you have little choice in the matter. Director Jorge Michel Grau has created such a bleak world filled with poverty and decay that you are forgiven if at any point you hope this dysfunctional family finally manages to find some food for the table.

The youngest are certainly the victims here. Whereas the prostitutes and bent cops had, at some point, a choice in which direction to take, the three children had no such luck, raised into a family that already relied on human flesh as their only means of protein. Why the mother, played with such menace by Carmen Beato, decided to pursue her husband’s odd dietary requirements, especially as she despised whores, isn’t really explained, and it leaves a sour taste because for the most part she revels in being by far the strongest character.

This isn’t a unique family either, because throughout, cannibalism, although revered, is seemingly treated as a common occurrence, almost on a par with shoplifting. This is hardly surprising when you witness Grau’s Mexico City, rife with official incompetence and corruption. In a world where nobody trusts anyone, the cannibals are just another band of scum that need to be wiped out. It’s certainly an interesting angle, summed up superbly when the daughter tries to persuade her siblings to take a lady of the night, insisting they should, “Hunt down a whore. It’s not cheating - we’ll dress her in my clothes.”

It’s this battle that holds the most interest. Beato juggles her dual roles of monster and mother quite superbly, but it’s the loathing of her husband’s acquired taste that leads to the film’s standout scenes: her dispatching of a hooker, the special delivery that succeeds it, and her final comeuppance are easily the better of a sub-plot involving the seedy policeman and his quest for approval from his comrades. Having said that, Grau still manages to deliver a scene even camper than Alfredo’s out of place sexual meanderings when the streetwalkers chase his brother Julian down the street.

For the gore-hounds, there is surprisingly little on offer here. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, although, at times, it wouldn’t hurt for a few more slashes of violence. Too much happens off screen, and although, in certain cases, it’s best to leave some horrors to the viewer’s imagination, here it would arguably add a little bit more clarity. Having said that, a brief scene that shows the teenage boys sexually toying with their victim, as any teenage cannibal would, comes as such an explicit surprise, you’ll be disappointed to find it cut short by their mother who halts proceedings the only way she knows how.

Suggesting rather than showing, We Are What We Are changes direction in the final act, and somehow comes to life as the ailing police force raid the family home. How they came upon the property so swiftly is a bit of a headache, but the ensuing shoot-out will wake most viewers from their quiet slumber of satisfaction, surprising some, upsetting others, with a finale that will divide opinion. It may be a lazy way to end proceedings, or it may be the inevitable outcome, but it’s certainly entertaining.

And here lies the problem. Whereas their father’s death, staggering through a shopping mall in the city, clutching his stomach before collapsing in front of semi-clad mannequins in a shop window is poetic, the police autopsy soon after introduces a character so pointlessly over the top it’s embarrassing. A sub-plot that revolves around their mother’s hatred for prostitutes is ruined by another about a dirty cop who wants to go out with a final bang, pulling the trigger to a finale that doesn’t quite sit right. A film that, at times, tastes of chalk rather than cheese, inhibited further by the lack of brutality on show, or in fact, a lack of anything that doesn’t even warrant debate, means that the final serving will probably leave the audience hungry.


If Grau had stuck to his guns, and concentrated on the far more interesting family relationships and the conflict generated, heightened by such a distressing series of events, We Are What We Are could’ve sat proudly beside Let The Right One In as one of the most beautiful horrors of the last decade. Instead, it’s memorable, but not a classic. DW

REVIEW: Cinema Release: We Are What We Are

Film: We Are What We Are
Release date: 12th November 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Jorge Michel Grau
Starring: Francisco Barreiro, Alan Chávez, Paulina Gaitán, Carmen Beato, Jorge Zárate
Genre: Drama/Horror
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: Cinema
Country: Mexico

A far from palatable tale of cannibals from first-time Mexican director Jorge Michel Grau, who grounds his story in the realities of his country’s class system – perhaps a truth that’s even harder to digest than the uncooked portions of human flesh.

The patriarch of a family of cannibals passes away after being poisoned, most likely by a prostitute – his meat of choice despite the protests of his wife.

With little time before the family’s next feeding ritual, the outlook is bleak, and the mother seems to have given up on all hope of survival. It’s therefore left to the children to assume the household’s responsibilities, including hunting to put meat on the table.

The daughter, who believes the eldest brother’s sensitivity and restraint makes him the perfect candidate to lead the family, despite his reservations, hatches a plan for the two brothers to abduct a prostitute – an easy choice after a botched snatch attempt on a child – who will be dressed in her own clothes to fool their mother. However, after the mother interrupts them, ensuring their catch meets a grisly end, events begin to spiral out of control.

All the while, unbeknown to them, following a routine autopsy on their father, which turned up an unusual find, the police are now on red alert – the family’s turmoil set to gift them a lead their incompetence would never find…


As with Let The Right One In before it, the success of We Are What We Are lies in taking an age old horror fable and stripping away all the clichés which have built up through constant retelling. Removing the obvious scare tactics that audiences are now resistant to, and placing the ‘monsters’ in realistic and relatable scenarios, building empathy for them, and in many ways painting the ‘victims’ as the real beasts, as the lack of disgust and better understanding for their actions becomes far more unsettling for viewers.

Much of the film’s running time is spent with the family; a true character study of a mother and her three teenage children who are coping with the loss of a husband and father – and the household’s main provider. Their home is the picture of poverty – none of the home comforts we are used to in their bare, poorly lit abode – and the children, who, after all, have had no choice in this undesirable lifestyle are left in a state of limbo, forced to grow up earlier than expected as the mother at first becomes reclusive, seeing no hope for their future, and later becomes oppressive - particularly damning of her eldest son who feels it is his duty to take on the mantle of head of the household given his age, even if he doesn’t want to.

Eldest son Alfredo is at the heart of this film, and Francisco Barreiro gives a mesmerising performance, conveying the requisite pain, uncertainty and anguish which is so critical in ensuring the viewer does not turn against the family. Unlike his hot-headed and violent brother – who loses them the only thankless job they can get at the start of the film – Alfredo shows sensitivity and restraint, hesitant to use violence against their prey and in a constant state of inner turmoil, trying to keep his brother under control as his sister presses that he must now do his duty, whilst his mother constantly criticises and puts him down.

Outside of the home, their chosen prey are dirty prostitutes, the policeman on their case is a glory hunter, not above paedophilia, whilst an early scene, where the family’s father passes away in a fairly gruesome manner in public, shows how little society cares about the underclass’s in this Mexico. Spewing black bile from his mouth, his body is dragged away immediately, the area quickly cleaned up as life carries on as normal – his death going unnoticed by the passersby.

Whilst this is something of family drama, with plenty of biting social commentary to get under your skin, the director is just as unflinching when it comes to the violence; the sounds, arguably even more than the images during the feeding ritual, are particularly ghastly. The darkly lit, atmospheric production, undesirables on both sides, and hints at even more heinous crimes (thankfully the incestuous temptations of the younger siblings is not fully explored) just add to the audience’s apprehension throughout.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t quite measure up to Let The Right One In. A few glaring plot holes as the film tries to deliver on thrills during the last twenty minutes spoils (as does a Hollywood-esque tying up of one of the loose ends), whilst you could say some of the humorous aspects do not sit well – the sweaty, vested pathologist who finds a whole finger perfectly intact inside the father’s stomach is a little too silly, given everything has been set up to be so real.


Even if it is loses its way somewhat towards the end, this is gripping and thought provoking stuff. Whilst you may not cheer them on, and you will find it hard to stomach some of the more gruesome aspects, you certainly don’t condemn them for their actions – a sympathetic pardon that makes this one of the scariest horror films for some time. DH