Jim Mickle’s “We Are What We Are,” opening Oct. 11 at Ritz Theatres, is a stylish, slow-burn reworking of the queer-tinged 2010 Mexican horror film of the same name. Mickle reverses the genders of the characters from the original; instead of a mother and her two sons grappling with the family tradition following the death of their father, this version of “We Are What We Are” has dad Frank Parker (Bill Sage), along with his daughters Rose (Julia Garner) and Iris (Ambyr Childers), and son Rory (Jack Gore), dealing with the untimely death of their mother.
The filmmaker also removed the original film’s queer content, focusing instead on two young daughters coming of age. Over the course of the film, Iris and Rose work out their feelings towards the religion they were raised in and the family’s ritual that involves eating the flesh of the dead.
Cannibalism is often used as a metaphor in films as the breakdown of society, but “We Are What We Are” gracefully never pushes the allegory aspect. As the title indicates, the family of cannibals simply is what it is.
Suffice it to say, dinner at the Parkers’ is rather sinister. However, to the film’s credit, “We Are What We Are” is so beautifully photographed that even a corpse looks appetizing.
In a recent interview during the director’s visit to Philadelphia, Mickle justified why he removed the gay subplot for his remake.
“The queer part didn’t sit with me all that well in the first one because I felt it was linked to what they were doing. A lot of the things we changed were because we don’t know what that’s like. Jorge [Grau, the original film’s director] himself isn’t gay. Every [other] element in the film was something he knew. That’s why we changed the setting and brought up the religious aspect. We kept coming back to the gay side, and I didn’t want that to feel that it was an offshoot of what they were doing. The gay character in the original was finding out who he was in a way, and we didn’t have that element here. These girls were raised a certain way with [religion].”
While the focus on young female sexuality lends itself to intimate moments between the siblings, who cuddle together almost incestuously in one tender scene, a sequence during which Iris steals away for a tryst with the sexy Deputy Anders (Wyatt Russell) ends badly.
Mickle explained his reasoning for this violent episode: “I don’t go for the trope of ‘we’re having sex, we have to get killed.’ It is punishment but it’s not about sex, it’s more about Iris reaching out to something she thinks a normal girl should do at that age. I don’t think she knows enough to really feel that stuff. It’s reaching her hand too close to the flame.”
“We Are What We Are” addresses how religion drives the family to commit horrific crimes. While the film does get a bit grisly, its story expresses issues of difference that might resonate with queer viewers — as when the girls wish out loud that they were “like everyone else.”
The Parker children are sheltered, living without books and other means to discover the outside world. The closest person to them in their rural community is their neighbor Marge, played by out actor Kelly McGillis.
The filmmaker recalled that McGillis’ character in his previous film, “Stake Land,” was “abused and beaten up by life.” He said that this was unfair to the actor, whom he described as “a fun-loving, happy person.”
“We felt a little bit guilty afterwards. Nick [Damici, Mickle’s co-writer on both films] was writing stuff for her. We didn’t talk about it during the writing of this script but we thought Marge has to be Kelly. If there’s any comic relief in the film, it’s her — the nosy-neighbor character. So we called her up and said, ‘We want you to do another movie, and be the clueless neighbor and have some fun with it,’ and she was game.”
McGillis generates several laughs in the film, most notably when Marge is awoken one night and answers the door with her hair in curlers. When she encounters the frightened Parker kids, she reacts to the commotion with an amusing WTF response.
“We Are What We Are” largely steers clear of being camp, even though some viewers may laugh — perhaps nervously — during an extended cannibalistic dinner. Yet Mickle is not trying to make a scary thriller despite the film’s gory content. Rather, he subverts genre conventions and expectations by focusing on issues of religious fervor and sexual desire as the characters strive to break free of their family’s dangerous, deadly cycle.