We Are What We Are

Jim Mickle's savvy re-imagining of the 2010 Mexican art house horror marks a quantum leap forward in maturity and style for the Stake Land director. It's a more mainstream proposition than Jorge Michel Grau's original film and exchanges urban angst for rural eeriness to deliver a subtle yet nuanced slice of American Gothic. Following their mother's unexpected death, the two teenage Parker sisters (Ambyr Childers and Julia Garner) are ordered by their stern father Bill Sage to carry out a macabre ancestral ritual. But when torrential storms hit upstate New York and the river overflows, local authorities start uncovering long-buried clues leading them closer to the Parker family's cannibalistic secret. Mickle's film is seasoned with remarkable performances from a top-notch cast, unexpected bursts of visceral poetry and potent plot details (including flashbacks to the origins of their "religion" and the grisly text they refer to as a family bible), which add enormous weight and a rare artistic integrity to this solid, satisfyingly restrained shocker.