80
Surely cinema's first Mexican social-realist cannibal horror drama, it's grimly funny and at times horribly effective stuff. Ickily excellent.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
91
Representing lower-class violence taken to an extreme, the cannibalism cannot be contained by police work. The movie's gradual build to a thrilling, appropriately bloody climax intensifies this disconnect.
75
Like zombie auteur George Romero at his best, Grau locks his sights on his social commentary of choice and goes after it with the zeal of a 19-year-old cannibal girl sinking an ax into the skull of her next meal. The result is messy, but it makes more than a meal.
70
This promising first feature is nearly as apt to use the power of suggestion as to ladle up the gore, triumphantly creepy, and just arty enough to have secured a slot in last year's New York Film Festival.
70
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
This ghastly scenario of poor preying on poor is, like the film's gray-green palette, profoundly depressing and entirely pitiless.
40
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
This gruesome, allegorical drama is dark and unsettling, but not so original that it begs to be let in.
40
Boxoffice Magazine by John P. McCarthy
A superficially provocative movie that tries way too hard to be memorable. Horror aficionados will be tantalized before walking away unsatisfied.
75
Mixing social commentary and black humor with copious amounts of blood and cracking bones, We Are What We Are offers a cannibal's-eye view of Mexico City's seamier side.
20
You can practically taste the grime in Jorge Michel Grau's art-house horror show-the film looks like it's been slathered with gooey discards from a backyard barbecue.
75
Morbidly funny art-house horror tale.