Directed by Jorge Michel Grau. Starring:  Francisco Barreiro, Alan Chávez, Paulina Gaitán, Carmen Beato, Jorge Zárate, Esteban Soberánes. 2010, Mexico, 90 mins, 35mm, Color, Spanish with English subtitles. Cert 15.

Released on UK DVD and Blu Ray by Chelsea Films on 21st March 2011. £15.99.

Mexican movie We Are What We Are opens with a man coughing up blood and collapsing outside a shopping mall before being carted off by dispassionate cleaners.

His death leaves widow Patricia (Carmen Beato) and her three teenage children – eldest son Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro), daddy’s girl Sabina (Paulina Gaitan) and the violent Julian (Alan Chavez) – not only distraught, but also in something of a pickle.

They’re a family of cannibals, you see, and papa was always the one who put food on the table. Now he’s gone, they’ll have to hunt for themselves before they starve to death. But the unpredictable Julian is a liability, matriarch Patricia is a touch crazy and withdrawn, repressed Alfredo seems unable to step up and take charge.

What follows is a bleak, powerful portrait of a family of monsters seen from their own point of view. And despite the occasionally gruesome human carving scene, it’s not at heart a horror film at all – like Swedish movie Let The Right One, We Are What We Are is an indie film built on horror foundations. Don’t let that put you off, though, because We Are What We Are also happens to be a jolly good indie flick – not as good as Tomas Alfredson’s outstanding vampire film for sure, but definitely top bracket.

Director Jorge Michel Grau creates a brooding atmosphere of coiled desperation where violent emotions bubble under the surface and, while his slow burn storytelling won’t be to everybody’s taste, I believe it works. By dwelling on the cannibal family’s procrastinations and bickering Grau draws the viewer into their dysfunctional world – Alfredo’s awkward homosexuality, Patricia’s obsessions and Sabina and Julian’s incestuous relationship loom almost as large as their craving for human flesh.

Moving and melancholy, We Are What We Are lets us see how the Things In The Shadows act and feel when they’re not leaping out and ripping your face off. The movie shows us how weak and pathetic they can be. It makes you pity the monsters.

David Axbey.

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