Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Jorge Michel Grau
Cast
Paulina Gaitán,
Francisco Barreiro,
Alan Chávez,
Carmen Beato,
Adrián Aguirre,
Miriam Balderas
Genre
Horror,
Thriller
A middle-aged man dies in the street, leaving his widow and three children destitute. The devastated family is confronted not only with his loss but with a terrible challenge -- how to survive. They need to consume human flesh to live, and with their father gone, they must hunt.
IndieWire by Eric Kohn
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.
Empire by Adam Smith
Surely cinema's first Mexican social-realist cannibal horror drama, it's grimly funny and at times horribly effective stuff. Ickily excellent.
Los Angeles Times by Mark Olsen
An unexpectedly rich exploration of family bonds, blood rituals and the oftentimes zombie-like desire to assume the roles proscribed to each of us, played out with a sharp undertow of political allegory and darkly comic sensibility.
New York Post by V.A. Musetto
Morbidly funny art-house horror tale.
NPR by Ian Buckwalter
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.
The A.V. Club by Keith Phipps
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.
Movieline by Elvis Mitchell
The very woozy nature of the story itself works.
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.
Village Voice by J. Hoberman
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.
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.
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.
Time Out by Keith Uhlich
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.
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