Good start, but then it gets ruined

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

When you're dealing with a group of cannibals, and realize that cannibalism is not their craziest feature, you know you have some really deranged individuals...This film builds an amazing character background, what one would call "a social worker's nightmare". A family that the word "dysfunctional" merely starts to describe. Contrary to most films use characters that seem unreal, or "movie like", this movie acquaints us with a family that most people, at one time of their lives have actually met, in a way. Extremely poor, incapable of social interaction, violent, isolated and insane. Criminally insane, in a reality where there absolutely no heroes around (literally there is not a single moral character in this movie, at least by common standards). The film deals with what seems at first glance to be an "over the top story", in the most realistic of ways. It feels very very real, and the choice of actors with distinctly "Mexican" features in their appearance is an excellent means to bring the films reality to life.So, why only 5/10 stars? Well unfortunately, a movie has to be entertaining (and by entertaining I don't mean making you "have fun" but keeping you engaged and caring about what's going on) and this one unfortunately... isn't. The characters, settings and images are great but not much happens during the movie plot-wise. Since you can't really care or relate with any of these characters, at least there should have been a more intriguing story, but there isn't. Even though, it is really worth your time, especially if you want a reminder of how sick the institution of family in general can be.

I'm not entirely sure why several people recommended this film to me… I guess that everyone still assumes that an art-house horror flick is automatically a must see in case it a) got made in a Spanish speaking country – preferably Mexico, b) played at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and c) quickly received an American remake. Well, newsflash, "We Are What We Are" most certainly isn't a must-see. Quite the contrary, in fact, this is an incredibly dull film with loathsome characters, implausible and outdated plot elements and severe pacing issues. This irritating hybrid between uninspired cannibal flick and pretentious coming-of-age story starts out fairly promising, with the rather disturbing death of a seemingly sick and perverted man in front of a shopping mall. He turns out to be the patriarch of a cannibalistic family and the sole provider of human bodies on their diner table. It's now up to the oldest son Alfredo to go out hunting, and together with his psychopathic younger brother Julian he brings home a prostitute, much against the will of their mentally unstable mother. After this incident all family members go hunting for their own victims, but they are closely followed by a determined police detective. "We Are What We Are" is unimaginably slow-paced and boring, but most of all terribly pretentious. For example, the screenplay never talks about cannibalism but about "performing the ritual". You can tell that some of the plot evolutions were intended to be shocking and controversial, but they actually aren't taboos anymore since a very long time, like gay adolescents or vigilante prostitutes. The filming style is exaggeratedly melodramatic, with colorless set-pieces and a deeply unpleasant ambiance. I assume that the young and overly ambitious writer/director Jorge Michel Grau also deliberately stuffed his film with social criticism about the poverty and hopelessness in certain big Mexican cities, but first he should try to pen down better scripts before getting politically engaged...

On my DVD-case, it read: "A cannibal gore-fest...", and other, similar phrases. Well, I just saw the film again on the BBC, but it's really not that much of a gore-fest at all. On the other hand - fair is fair - those faint of heart may still want to avoid this.I think got the quirkiness of it much better this time around, as I kept detecting little humorous details here and there, and the whole premise (and story) radiates an atmosphere that is at the same time philosophical, comical, socially engaging and downright unnerving. The first time I watched this, I also hadn't figured out that this family does not eat people because they are poor, which makes a big difference.The problem that a lot of scenes stayed too much in the dark, literally, still stands, and here and there the film feels repetitive, and the cast hardly excels (though they dó represent the living dead...). The opening scene, the hunting for victims and the finale (daughter's escape and mom's demise) deserve an extra mention.A good 7 out of 10 this time around, a whole point extra since the last time.

Depending on how you like your horror films, Mexican writer/ director Jorge Michel Grau's filmmaking debut might either be an atmospheric genre flick or a frustratingly slow exercise in pointlessness - and we'll be upfront by saying that it was pretty much the latter for us. The tale of a family of cannibals struggling to survive after the sudden death of its patriarch, Grau's macabre tale set in Mexico City tries to be allegory on the desperation and subsequent perversity of the lower class, but that metaphor is somewhat lost in a thinly written and deliberately paced story that is likely to test the patience of many viewers.Indeed, too little happens too slowly and too seriously in the not- quite-brief-enough 89 minutes that Grau tries but ultimately fails in holding his audience's attention. What starts out somewhat riveting with a disoriented middle-aged man collapsing dead on the sidewalk turns into a ponderous family drama with a dysfunctional mother Patricia (Carmen Beato) and her three children - Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro), Julián (Alan Chávez), and Sabina (Paulina Gaitan). Now that there is no one to bring home the meat, Patricia and her sons are faced with the task of finding a human sacrifice to complete what is simply known as "The Ritual", essentially meant to identify someone among them who can take over Dad's place as head of the household.Grau's storytelling unfolds in telenovela-fashion, as brother fights with brother, sister sides with one of the brothers, and mother starts by having a nervous breakdown and then returns to reassert her authority in the family. It almost seems like yet another family, if not for the fact that their arguments revolve around whether the sacrifice should be a homeless child, a prostitute or a gay - in particular, Julián's violent and impulsive kidnapping of a street hooker stirs up a torrent of anger from his mother, given how their father was previously given to "whoring". Moody and disquieting it may be, one cannot quite shake off the feeling that it is no more than a glorified family soap, with cannibalism thrown in to disguise the laboured melodrama of sibling rivalry, maternal rejection, repressed homosexuality and incestuous desire.Those looking for the film to live up to its R21 rating for gore will have to wait till the last third, since Grau largely keeps the violence before that off-camera, leaving the bloodbath for an extended climax where a chain of events leads the police and a group of vengeful prostitutes (who are friends of the lady Julián kidnapped and killed) at their doorstep. Even so, the staging of that climactic confrontation is as muted as the rest of the movie, the gore no more than splatter that looks like it could have been left over from some 80s exploitation flick. Consider this fair warning to those looking for some sort of payoff at the end - if you're looking for a thrilling finish, you're going to be massively disappointed.And so, despite what its tantalising premise might suggest, this is firmly an art-house drama that trades in quiet long takes for a large part of its duration. The fact that the family crisis we see unfolds in a cannibalistic tribe does make it slightly more engrossing than if it were just an ordinary family, but there's no mistaking that this is still the stuff of melodramatic soap opera - and by that, we also mean not enough here is sufficiently compelling to live up to its aim of being political allegory. But like we said at the start, perhaps most significant is the undeniable feeling that this family drama of cannibals is simply pointless - after all, why bother with this aberration if they are ultimately no different from any ordinary family in their dysfunction?