We Are What We Are Review

We Are What We Are
When the father of a Mexican family dies the kids must take responsibility for making ends meet. Or should we say, meat.

by Adam Smith |
Published on
Release Date:

12 Nov 2010

Running Time:

89 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

We Are What We Are

It’s hard to decide what’s more gruelling in horror-satire We Are What We Are: the grinding poverty that the featured family live in, or the fact that they've taken to eating people. After the father dies of a terminal case of indigestion, it's up to the children to put meat on the table, a grim job not helped by the batty mother's aversion to the easiest prey, the local prostitutes. Meanwhile, elder brother Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro) is on the cusp of coming out as gay, while his brother apparently has the hots for his sister. Macabre, biting (apologies) and grimly funny, it's a bit like if Mike Leigh were to remake The Hills Have Eyes. From the cannibal’s point of view. In Mexican.

Surely cinema's first Mexican social-realist cannibal horror drama, it's grimly funny and at times horribly effective stuff. Ickily excellent.

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