In Jim Mickle’s chameleonic noir thriller Cold in July, an adaptation of the cult novel by Joe R. Lansdale, Michael C. Hall takes perhaps the most drastic departure in his career, playing Richard Dane, a timid, unremarkable picture frame store owner who accidentally shoots a burglar in his small-town Texas home in the film’s wonderfully edited, punchy opening. The gutless Richard, shaken by the consequences of his twitchy trigger finger, is soon plunged head-first into a world of old-school cowboy badasses and gunfights when Russel, (a gruff Sam Shepard) the father of the slain home invader, seeks revenge on Richard and his family. The strength of Mickle’s film is that, once you feel like you know exactly where it’s going, it takes an unexpected turn and becomes almost a new kind of film entirely. The film’s weakness is that the varied forms it inhabits feel largely derivative, not elevated enough to free themselves from the norm.

At first, Richard and his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and son are terrorized by Russel, with the creepy ex-con picking up where his son left off, invading the Dane home, more as an act of intimidation than stealing. Mickle is gifted at squeezing every bit of intensity and terror out of classic stalker scenes, and these early sequences are truly gripping. He relishes in playing with genre conventions, mining the work of Romero most notably, though less so than his Zombie thriller, Stake Land. Pulpy ’70s flicks inform Cold in July‘s style throughout, with grisly flashes of violence punctuating Mickle’s methodical approach to action. (An exception is the film’s climax, a nighttime shootout that falls apart quickly and finishes of the film with an ugly thud.)

Hall, wearing a gloriously ’80s mullet, is fantastic as Richard, a meek man forced to become a tough-guy overnight. Helping him along on his road to becoming a true badass is Don Johnson, playing a karate-kicking private eye who gives the film a welcome dose of bravado. The relationship between Richard and Russel goes to unexpected places I won’t spoil here, but I will say that Hall and Shepard have a quiet chemistry that stretches them both as actors. Shaw, however, is regrettably invisible, adding little to the emotional core of the story, despite her character’s positioning in the plot being ripe for powerful scenes of heartache and fear. Those scenes never come.

Richard’s arc is fascinating on paper; he’s faced with the responsibility of being an alpha male for the sake of protecting his family. In that gunshot flash that opens the movie, he sends himself down a path he’d never had the desire to go down, and yet, he must man up or perish. What sullies the emotional impact of his story are the later acts, whose blood-splattering violence is so arresting and dizzying you forget the subtle details of what brought our hero there in the first place. Everything devolves into midnight movie craziness, and while it doesn’t erase how involving the first two thirds of the film are, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. There’s a powerful theme of fatherly duty swimming around in the buckets of blood, but it in the end it all but drowns.

Cold in July trailer

Jim Mickle’s We Are What We Are (a remake of the 2010 Mexican horror film of the same name) received a lot of buzz from its Sundance premiere earlier in the year though we first saw the film a few months later when it played during the Directors Fortnight at Cannes. More recently we had the opportunity to sit down with Mickle to chat about his film in our interview. The film is now starting to make its way into a wider public release and to give a little more background on the film they have released a short featurette.

The featurette gives some insight on how important it is to question certain traditions, especially growing up. We Are What We Are centers on a creepy family who carries out a disturbing family tradition which leads to some nauseating images towards the finale. The film is essentially an exploration into fundamental religion mixed with in a throwback to the horror genre of a few decades back.

Watch the We Are What We Are featurette:

Jim Mickle loosely remakes Jorge Michel Grau’s 2010 horror flick, Somos lo Que Hay, with We Are What We Are, an American Gothic mutation of Grau’s well-received tale about a family of cannibals. More family drama than gore fest, Mickle’s film is driven by atmosphere and mystique, more concerned with creeping you out than making you hurl…until the abominable grand finale, that is.

The film opens in a small town outside of the Catskills, with Emma Parker (Kassie DePaiva), the matriarch of the cannibalistic Parker family, dying of a freak accident, leaving behind her husband, Frank (Bill Sage), teenage daughters Isis (Ambyr Childers, The Master) and Rose (Julia Garner, Martha Marcy May Marlene), and young son, Rory (Jack Gore) to carry out their creepy family traditions, the ambiguously religious origins of which are revealed in time. Mama Parker was responsible for preparing a ritualistic mortal gumbo for the family to chomp on, so now the burden of the slaughter falls on the shoulders of the eldest daughter, Isis. Papa Parker drags home a hapless victim for Isis to butcher, but she and Rose (constantly frazzled and paranoid) begin to buckle under the immense gravity of the task at hand when they discover that the poor soul they’re meant to mutilate is a girl from school.

Frank is a menacing man of few words, unpredictably snapping in bursts of rage, employing intimidation (both physical and psychological) to raise his children. Sage is eerily understated and an imposing force of nature, evoking a sense of tight-lipped dread–you’ll be on edge every second he’s on screen. Garner and Childers, both exceedingly talented for their age, put forth absolutely heartbreaking performances, though, to no fault of their own, their wholesome, Disney-kid good looks seem to sap the terror out of certain scenes, perhaps because their beauty distracts from the grisly atmosphere rather than juxtaposing it. Tarantino favorite Michael Parks is as dependable as ever, playing a good-hearted doctor who begins to catch on to the Parkers’ bloody history as he finds “clues” (i.e. human remains) floating down the flooded river, and his encounter with Mr. Parker when he finally puts the pieces together is the best scene of dialog in the film.

For the most part, Mickle uses the same quiet, lingering creepiness that pervades Martha Marcy May Marlene (much of his crew worked on that film, as well), allowing the stillness and ambiance of the moment to buzz in your ear a bit, needling at your nerves. Oddly, there are certain scenes that would have been elevated by this “silent treatment” (most notably the spectacularly gory ending), but instead have bizarrely melodramatic music plastered all over them, muffling the shocking immediacy of it all. In the films most egregious dip in artfulness, an inexplicable sex scene (it’s so out of the blue you’ll laugh) cartoonishly screeches to a halt with a splash of Platinum Dunes-style gore. Against the palpable, pitch black atmosphere Mickle and company create, the sequence feels a little silly, though the stumble doesn’t hurt the film all that much.

The Parker household–and the entire film, in fact–feels of another time, with candlelight flickering against the deep shadows of its corridors, contrasting brilliantly with the biblical rainstorms pouring outside the windows. There’s a not-so-subtle knock on fundamentalist religion that’s ever-present in the film, but the storytelling is effective whether you choose to digest it as a religious parable or not. Mickle and his crew deserve a lot of credit (especially cinematographer Ryan Samul) for exercising a great measure of finesse and deliberateness in crafting We Are What We Are, which could have easily become a throw-away jump-scare machine in less caring hands. Though the Salo-level gore of the final act doesn’t repulse so much as it confounds, the well-executed slow burn that leads us to it is worth the price of admission.

We Are What We Are trailer:

After directing Stakeland and Mulberry Street, two indie horror films that are slowly building cult followings, director Jim Mickle is back with his third film, We Are What We Are (a remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s 2010 film of the same name). A more somber, calculated breed of scare cinema, it stars Bill Sage as the patriarch of a family of flesh-eaters–Julia Garner (Martha Marcy May Marlene) and Ambyr Childers (The Master) play his lovely daughters–and explores the darkest side of fundamental religion (parabolically, of course), all leading up to a revolting, hurl-inducing finale that’ll have everyone who sees it talking for days.

We spoke to Mickle about being upfront about the cannibalism aspect of the story, being liberated by the fact that it’s a remake, what scares him more; cannibalism or religion, making French people angry, and more.

How’s it been touring with the movie?
It’s good. It’s crazy. You make a movie, you get it all out and you want to tell people about it, and you can’t! You go to a festival and you sit on it for six months. All of a sudden, it’s a year later and it’s like, “Talk about that movie again!” I have this weird relationship with it now, like a distance to it, which I guess is good. I guess it’s healthy.

Are you familiar with Hitchcock’s definition of suspense versus surprise?
Yeah. The bomb under the table.

You show the bomb under the table. You tell us very early in the movie that this is a family of cannibals.
I used that example many times with Nick [Damici], the screenwriter. We would talk about that a lot. “Okay, great. We’ve got this [cannibal thing], now let’s play with that.” It was really fun to go into a movie and, whether we said it or not, people are going to come into it knowing it’s a remake of a film. By the time I heard about the original We Are What We Are, I knew it was a “family of cannibals” movie. So, people are going to come into this knowing. It was really cool to say, “Look. We don’t have to worry about when we drop the hammer.” It’s not like The Crying Game where the last scene is like, “Hey!” It was cool to do that because then the issue wasn’t “What are they?” The issue was, “How does it work?” Why are these pretty girls running around with floral prints? We let that be the suspense of how it was going to play out.

So that’s what it freed you up to focus on.
Yeah, totally. To me, it’s not about the cannibalism. It’s not that they’re cannibals. The family tradition is the horror. That’s also what was fun about it, to say, “They’re cannibals, but it’s not a cannibal movie.” It’s more of a condemnation of fundamental religion.

What’s interesting to me is, this is a remake of a recently released film, but you seem to be liberated by that as opposed to tackling the pressures inherent in a project like this. You don’t seem to be concerned with those pressures one bit.
What was cool was using it like a springboard to do another story and not feel beholden to do his film. Not because we didn’t like it, but because it would be completely redundant. His movie was great; he set out to do a certain thing and he did it. It’s got his voice, his style, and it deals with really interesting themes. It was like, what would you do if you made a remake of this? There’d be nothing there, you know?

It’d be unnecessary.
Which is what most remakes are. It became a cool challenge of, let’s make an original movie that can play by his rules.

When I see filmmakers tackle remakes like this, especially of recent movies, they seem to be a little competitive. Like, “If we’re going to do this, we have to make it bigger and better.” You go the other direction. You don’t even want to think about competing with the original.
Totally. In my last film, Stakeland, we came up with this idea that we were going to do a web series that was going to take each character and was going to have its own universe. We came up with concepts for each character, what their life was like before this apocalypse happened. At some point, we got bogged down and didn’t have the time or the ability to do it. We thought, let’s grab five filmmakers that we really like, who are friends of ours, and say, “This is your challenge. You can see the film, you can see what we did. But now, with your own voice…make a short film with our character.” It’s almost like an artist guest appearing in a comic book series. For us, it was this liberating, awesome experience. There was no sense of competition, just this beauty of storytelling. If someone came to me wanting to make my film, I would want it to be in that spirit as well. I think Jorge kind of got that. He said, “I like your movie. I’m working on my own movie, so I don’t have time to be involved if you wanted me to be involved, so go make it, and I can’t wait to see it!” He got to see it, and I think he really liked it.

What scares you more; cannibalism or organized religion?
Organized religion, by far.

That was a quick answer! Did you try to feed that animal to generate horror in the film?
You find it as you go. Every time you do a little polish or a little pass or a draft, you start to iron these things out. We never set out and said, “We’re to make a movie about a family of cannibals with two girls in it and it’s going to be a parable of Mormonism.” Those things happen, but you never really start out doing them. You explore it, you get lost in it, and you talk about what matters to you. It’s almost like holding a mirror up, like a kind of therapy. But, when you ask me point blank…yeah, organized religion scares me more than any of that stuff.

What’s a great horror movie that explores the theme of religion?
Rosemary’s Baby. There are a lot of parallels with that movie and this one, and it was a big inspiration. These girls feel like they could be some sort of weird descendants of Mia Farrow, in a way. Martha Marcy May Marlene. I just love that movie.

Some of your crew worked on Martha, right?
A whole bunch of them did, actually. Julie [Garner] is in it, one of our producers is from that movie, we have the same script supervisor, hair stylist…

You can feel some of the same sensibilities from Martha in your film, like the use of silent beats. What do you like about quiet moments?
We’d done two movies that are very rich and filled with elements. Seldom is there a quiet moment. When there is one, it pops because there’s been so much music and sound effects. Both of those movies are very motivated by external conflicts. Monsters, creatures. After doing two movies like that, I found that my favorite parts were the dramatic scenes. I wanted to do a whole movie of just that, really. I think it was that, Martha, and a bit of Japanese horror, which I’m enamored with. I love the confidence of those filmmakers to be able to make things creepy in a way that you wouldn’t expect. Those films are unsettling and weird, but they don’t try to jump scare you. It’s the visual storytelling. We wanted something where, because we weren’t giving you certain information, it was going to engage you more, as opposed to filling you up with story and plot twists. We also subverted as much as we could and let it play beautiful and classical.

Talk about the Amish-like clothes the characters wear. Does that stuff creep you out?
Yeah, totally, but it’s also weirdly comforting, too. I grew up around Amish communities.

Where’d you grow up?
Outside of Redding, Pennsylvania, kind of near Lancaster. Not so much now, but growing up there was a bit of an element of Pennsylvania Dutch and this sense of tradition in a lot of people. There’s something about that that’s very comforting. That’s what we play with here–something that’s really comforting can also be corrupted to be something very wrong.

Was the rain in the film real?
No, it was all fake! (laughs) Every shot that has rain in it is fake, except someone corrected me the other day. It actually rained on the first day of the shoot, where we did all the 1780’s stuff. It poured that day, and we put tents outside the cave to block it so we wouldn’t see the rain. It was so funny because it wasn’t supposed to rain for that scene, and then we cut to the rest of the movie where it rains and we had to fake it for every shot.

You’ve traveled with the film for a while now. What’s the most memorable reaction  by an audience member to the big finale?
It was at the Deauville Film Festival about three weeks ago. The film was playing with Fruitvale Station and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. It was a crowd of about 1,500 people, and everyone who goes to it is expecting the next Sundance thing that’s going to go on and win Oscars, the next Fox Searchlight thing, or whatever the hell Sam Rockwell’s in that year. I don’t know if they’ve ever programmed a horror movie there, and the audience just went in blindly. It was all these really bourgeois French filmgoers, probably none of them under the age of 50, and all of them with these salmon-colored sweaters tied around their shoulders. I think we flew in that morning, and I was beat. We had just wrapped another film. I had slept for maybe four hours, got on a plane to France, and all of a sudden we were being ushered to this matinee screening of our film. As soon as the ending happened, people started booing and hissing and yelling. “Out with the director! F the director! This isn’t cinema!” Everybody’s screaming, making a show, violently walking by and making hand gestures to me. The rest of the audience applauded for those people to leave and then gave us a standing ovation. We went out in the lobby, and there were people waiting for us, yelling, “Scandal! Scandal!” We were told, “Now let’s go to the press conference.” And we were like, “Press conference?!” The journalists were arguing in the audience! They were arguing with each other and storming out of the press conference. It was insane. I loved it.

What a perfect response. You pushed right past the boundaries.
People would come up to us three days later when we were walking around town, and people were like, “That’s my favorite movie of the year! Thank you for making it.” Other people would give us the evil eye as we passed. That’s what I wanted to do with the movie. It was the perfect response.

Making difficult decisions simply goes hand-in-hand with film festivals, and Cannes is certainly no exception. Deciding upon which film to see when inevitably two play at the same time is just the start. Because there are approximately 4,500 press in attendance, most films require you to wait in line for about an hour a before the film is scheduled to begin. And that still does not guarantee access, especially for films that are in high demand. The real difficult decisions come when you must decide upon waiting in line to better your chances for a spot, or to eat a proper meal. However, in Cannes there is one simple rule that everyone abides by; films always receive the highest of priorities.

Yachts that surround Cannes

Sarah Prefers To Run

As you probably guessed, Sarah Prefers To Run is about a 20-year-old woman who cares little about anything other than running. Her talent in the sport lands her an opportunity to be a part of a university program in Montreal. The only problem is that Sarah does not have much money saved up to cover the costs of moving and living expenses for there. In addition, she has no support from her mother because of a not so great relationship between the two. Her mother has told her before that running will not put money on the table for her in the future, but there is a hint of something else causing their riff.

But Sarah is unwilling to let money issues prevent her from achieving her dreams as a runner. So she visits her friend Antoine, I’ll give you one guess how she got there, to ask if he will be a roommate of hers. He agrees and the two share an apartment together in Montreal. Because Sarah has no time for a job with school and running taking up most of her time, she is not even able to half of the rent. So Antoine comes up with an idea that only a twenty-year-old would think is a good solution; to get married so they can collect money from the government. At first Sarah is very reluctant about Antoine’s plan as she only sees him as a friend not a lover. But with no other options in sight, she agrees on the notion it is purely for financial reasons. The shot of her agreeing with the arrangement is shown as a blurry reflection from a window that perfectly fits the decision at hand.

Sarah’s shyness, haste for the government, and estranged relationship with her mother may all stem from a detail that the director Chloé Robichaud only faintly chooses to expose, much like the personality of the main character herself. At one point her character is asked if she believes in destiny to which she replies, “No.” Perhaps Sarah prefers to make her own destiny by controlling the things that she can. One thing is for sure, Sarah does prefer to run.

RATING: 8.1

The Bastards

Claire Denis’ latest film The Bastards serves up a heavy dose of drama in the form of sexual exploitation that at times is gruesome enough to make you cringe. You will certainly never look at corn on the cob in the same way. Denis hits all the right notes from a technical standpoint; fantastic camera work, solid cast, and a good old-fashion revenge story. But despite all of that, in the end The Bastards does not fulfill. The largest offender for the unsatisfying results is a story structure that is far more complicated than it really needs to be. There is no happy ending when all the characters are bastards.

One of the better sequences found in the film is at the very beginning when jump-cut footage of a woman wearing nothing but high heels walks down the street in complete shock. Police lights fill the streets of Paris at night at the site of an apparent suicide. It is not until much later that the film reveals who it was. The woman has obvious signs of abuse which results in the family to investigate and seek revenge on everyone involved.

RATING: 6.4

We Are What We Are

The much buzzed about film from Sundance named We Are What We Are played tonight here in Cannes as part of the Directors Fortnight section. This is a remake of the 2010 Mexican horror film that shares the same name about a creepy family who maintains disturbing family traditions. Preparation of one such tradition requires the family to fast for a few days leading up to this event. The youngest family member is starving and his two older sisters remind him that no food can be consumed. And they take this very seriously.People from the town they live in seem to be disappearing – which also might have something to do with the tradition.

We Are What We Are paces itself all the way until the very end, but even the climax is muted. The little amount of suspense that the film does generate eventually dissolves and is unrewarding. Almost all of the characters are dumber than they should be, examples; a doctor ends up committing one of horrors most offending rules, a young cop who is completely unconvincing, and one of the sisters that wants to make an escape but never tries very hard to do so. In the screening I attended, the film received more laughs than thrills and the only gasps were because of some of the gore that was shown on screen. Maybe that was what the film was going for, but even if that is the case it still did not satisfy.

RATING: 5.5