Review of We Are What We Are (2013) by Andrew G — 22 May 2016

This remake of the Mexican original of the same name, features a much tighter narrative with more focus on the horror elements, but it's still missing enough substance to make it memorable and they could have fleshed the concept out far better.

For some reason, both versions of this story fail to convey how the cannibalism diet works, where they seem to only be able to eat a person every couple of days, but what are they eating in the meantime? It's an extremely annoying detail both films don't seem to want to address.

This story differs slightly and flips the roles around from the original with the mother dying instead of the father, and it is the two daughters who have to take over the family instead of sons, and also adds a subplot involving a doctor whose daughter was a victim of the family to great effect with the casting of, Michael Parks in the role.

This film is a lot less of a social commentary than the original, and more of a straight-up, family-centered horror film, which I definitely appreciated, but its impact is more felt in the final act. The ending deviates wildly from the original in that the father can't cope with caring for his family alone and decides to poison everyone; but his daughters see through his plan and exact some wickedly disgusting revenge that I really couldn't believe was happening; it is a cannibalism story after all.

If you're going to watch one version of this story, my vote goes to the Hollywood version which nails the tone better and has much more impressive acting, but they are both missed opportunities in my mind and could've done so much more with their gruesome premises.