The Hills Have Manners
Horror has given us all kinds of families — the murderous, the deranged, the “bring-your-own-skin-mask” types — but few manage to make cannibalism look this polite. Jim Mickle’s We Are What We Are (2013) takes the most primal of horrors and dresses it up in lace and scripture. It’s a film that asks: What if Norman Rockwell painted a Norman Bates family portrait?
A slow-burn Gothic remake of the 2010 Mexican original, Mickle’s version swaps Mexico City’s urban decay for the muddy Americana of upstate New York. The result is a cannibal drama with a side of melancholy — part Texas Chainsaw Massacre, part Little House on the Prairie, and part Food Network: Hell’s Kitchen Edition.
And somehow, it’s beautiful. Grotesque, yes. But beautiful in that “I feel bad for enjoying this” kind of way.
The Plot: A Family That Eats Together, Stays Together
The Parkers are the kind of family that make you feel better about your own dysfunctional Thanksgiving dinners. Led by patriarch Frank (Bill Sage, all slow drawl and simmering menace), the clan lives in an isolated farmhouse, where rain never stops falling and secrets rot just beneath the surface — literally.
When Mrs. Parker collapses in the opening scene and drowns in a puddle like a gothic cautionary tale, her death sets off more than grief. It triggers a family tradition so nasty it makes The Waltons look like serial killers. Turns out the Parkers are devoutly religious cannibals.
Frank’s daughters, Iris (Ambyr Childers) and Rose (Julia Garner, the real MVP here), are tasked with carrying on the family’s “holy” duty — fasting, capturing, butchering, and eating the occasional neighbor. You know, the usual family bonding activity.
But while Dad’s quoting scripture and sharpening his knives, the girls start to crack under the pressure. Iris falls in love with the local deputy, Anders (Wyatt Russell), who just wants to save her from her father’s weird meat-based theology. Rose, meanwhile, starts realizing that maybe “we are what we are” doesn’t have to mean “we are barbecue enthusiasts with a God complex.”
Meanwhile, the town’s doctor (Michael Parks, perfectly world-weary) starts putting two and two together after finding a human bone in the creek and diagnosing Mrs. Parker’s death as kuru — the real-life brain disease caused by eating other humans. Yes, folks: science ruins family traditions once again.
Jim Mickle’s Direction: Bleak, Beautiful, and Disturbingly Civilized
Director Jim Mickle (Stake Land, Cold in July) has always had a thing for quiet horror — stories that bleed slowly. With We Are What We Are, he turns cannibalism into something haunting and tragic instead of gory and grotesque.
Everything here is muted: the colors, the dialogue, even the violence. When the blood flows, it’s not splatter-porn; it’s ritual. The cinematography (by Ryan Samul) drenches the Catskills in mist and decay, making it feel like time itself has mold growing on it.
The film’s pacing is deliberate — so deliberate, in fact, that viewers expecting chainsaw mayhem might start gnawing on their own arms just to pass the time. But patience pays off. Mickle’s control of tone is so tight that when the horror does hit, it lands with the force of divine punishment.
This isn’t a movie that screams; it whispers scripture in your ear while holding a carving knife.
Bill Sage: The Prophet of Protein
Bill Sage’s Frank Parker is what happens when religious fanaticism and culinary curiosity meet in the worst possible way. He’s terrifying not because he’s violent — though he is — but because he believes.
Sage plays him as a man who genuinely thinks he’s doing the Lord’s work, even as he’s teaching his daughters to butcher human meat like it’s a church bake sale. His calmness is unnerving; his discipline, absolute. You almost expect him to say grace before slitting someone’s throat.
And in a sense, that’s what he does. His faith is his horror. Frank doesn’t see murder; he sees sacrifice. Which, honestly, is the creepiest kind of dad there is.
The Daughters: Saints, Sinners, and Survivors
Julia Garner (before her Ozark fame) and Ambyr Childers are the emotional core of this macabre meal. Garner, in particular, is magnetic — all wide eyes and trembling defiance. You can see the war inside her: devotion versus disgust, love versus appetite.
Their scenes together are heartbreaking — two girls trying to obey their father, even as their instincts scream to run. There’s a quiet tragedy in watching them perform their mother’s cannibalistic duties, blades shaking in their hands, praying for forgiveness that will never come.
By the time they finally turn on their father in the finale — quite literally devouring the patriarchal system that’s consumed them — it’s both shocking and oddly cathartic. Who knew cannibalism could be feminist commentary?
Cannibalism, But Make It Classy
Unlike The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Wrong Turn, We Are What We Are doesn’t rely on jump scares or gore to unsettle you. Instead, it marinates you in dread — like a fine steak, left to soak in existential despair.
The cannibalism here isn’t for shock value; it’s ritualized, sacred, and depressingly normalized. It’s the family’s religion, their history, their curse. The film treats it the way another story might treat alcoholism or abuse — a generational sin, passed down with prayer and guilt.
And Mickle, ever the genre alchemist, transforms this grotesque practice into a metaphor for blind faith. The Parkers don’t eat people because they’re monsters. They eat people because they’re believers.
It’s horrifying precisely because it makes sense — at least to them. And if that isn’t a perfect snapshot of humanity, I don’t know what is.
A Feast for the Morbidly Thoughtful
We Are What We Are is one of those rare horror remakes that justifies its existence. It doesn’t copy the original; it translates it. The Mexican version dealt with urban poverty and societal decay. Mickle’s film transforms it into an American Gothic about repression, religion, and the myth of family purity.
It’s not about what’s on the plate — it’s about who you’re willing to feed to tradition.
Even the supporting cast adds flavor: Kelly McGillis as the kindly vegetarian neighbor (bless her doomed heart), Wyatt Russell as the decent guy trying to save a girl who’s already too far gone, and Michael Parks as the doctor whose pursuit of truth is equal parts noble and suicidal.
The film builds to a climax that’s both grisly and poetic — a bloody communion where the daughters finally break free by literally eating their father alive. It’s the kind of ending that makes you laugh, cheer, and wonder what the hell you just watched.
Final Thoughts: Family Values Never Tasted So Good
We Are What We Are is a rare treat in modern horror — elegant, disturbing, and darkly funny in all the wrong ways. It’s the cinematic equivalent of eating a beautifully plated dish only to realize halfway through that it’s human flesh.
Jim Mickle serves up a story that’s equal parts art-house and grindhouse — a slow-cooked study in faith, family, and the fine line between devotion and damnation.
The title isn’t just a statement; it’s a warning. Because in this world, we really are what we are — believers, killers, sinners, survivors. And sometimes, dinner.
Verdict: 4.5 out of 5 stars.
A haunting, slow-burn masterpiece that proves horror can still have soul — even if that soul comes medium-rare.
