'We Need to Do Something' Review
NR
Runtime: 1 Hr and 38 Minutes
Production Companies: Atlas Industries, Spin a Black Yarn
Distributor: IFC Films
Director: Sean King O'Grady
Writer: Max Booth III
Cast: Vinessa Shaw, Sierra McCormick, Pat Healy, John James Cronin, Lisette Alexis
Release Date: September 3, 2021
In Theaters and VOD
Seeking shelter from a storm, a family finds themselves trapped for days with no sign of rescue and untold evils lurking just beyond the walls in this wildly fun house-of-horrors thrill ride.
From a storytelling standpoint, I can’t even fathom how difficult it is to pull off a movie with a single set location. For drama films, there’s nothing but good tea being generated through various bouts of dialogue, but for horror films… well, that ends up being quite the challenge. A single set horror flick is hard to accomplish since you’re playing with genuine fear toto evoke a rise of tension from the audience. Doing this as your first feature is simply a bold ass debut, and Sean King O'Grady proves to be more or less a promising filmmaker with We Need to Do Something.
As the film gauges you to see how much mileage it can get out of its premise right from the cold open, which puts this dysfunctional family underground, O’Grady delivers some engaging twists and turns. When you feel the vehicle sputtering out of gas, there’s a deranged turn to jolt you awake and keep you enticed for the ride. I admire the level of effort put into the chaotic sequences featuring blood and gore. The practical effect work on the money shots of body horror is impressive.
It’s great seeing former Disney stars branch out to film and assimilate into their designated genres. Zendaya has been a jack of all trades, Moises Arias has been an indie darling, and Sierra McCormick is quickly becoming a horror star. Between VFW, American Horror Stories, and We Need to Do Something, she displays a deep love for the genre and is game for whatever material she’s provided with. McCormick eats it up with confidence and it’s pretty exciting to see her career take a great turn like this. The film positions her character Melissa as the central lead, for she’s the only one in the family to receive a series of flashbacks to her life pre-storm where her and her girlfriend (Lisette Alexis) share a romantic but supernatural kind of bond.
Aside from McCormick being a rookie to the genre, you have horror star Pat Healy who eats up so much scenery as the patriarch of the family who goes from 0-100 real quick. He simply steals the show with his aggression and line delivery. He does some of the most insane shit throughout the film and keeps you on your toes. There’s no progression to his madness, for you can spot where he’s gonna end up the first time he shows an outburst of anger, but Healy’s performance is an absolute riot.
We Need to Do Something is based on a novella of the same name by Max Booth III, who also penned the screenplay. I don’t know the source material at all but I wonder how the novella handles elevating tension with isolation and claustrophobia in its writing because when it’s depicted on screen, the results are middling. The bathroom the family is trapped in doesn’t exhibit much dread or claustrophobia. While yes, they are all trapped together with everything outside their walls being a complete mystery, the bathroom has space. There’s a corridor to the tub. The sink isn’t that far behind. There’s some good distance between the door and the tub. The space in their bathroom is larger than most living spaces in Brooklyn.
The sense of dread and isolation is also poorly executed due to the rush of psyche from the thinly-veiled ensemble. It immediately goes into mad territory without any genuine build-up or establishment to the family unit itself. We don’t even know their last names, they’re so generic. The film is so one-track-minded on the angsty Melissa, attempting to give her some sort of characterization that interweaves into the current events, but the rest of the family is given scraps to work with. Outside of Melissa and even Robert to some extent, mother Diane and little brother Bobby are so bland in personality that when their dramatic emotional beats occur, you don’t feel anything. It’s up to the actors to do their damndest to make the thin material hold some weight. Vinessa Shaw is so damn good in this movie, yet she’s given absolutely nothing to do and it’s like… why are you wasting her time?!
Speaking of time, the film fails to exhibit any natural progression in order to accomplish the promising slow-burn it desperately wants to exude. Shit hits the fan relatively early into the film without letting the audience settle into the family. There are areas where the story meanders, especially during Melissa's solo flashbacks. Booth III tries to have his cake and eat it too by switching the notion between psychological and supernatural horror, but when they are forced together, it doesn’t all click. We Need to Do Something had potential due to some effective sequences of bloody horror, along with engaging performances from the ensemble, but its generic characters and unevenly paced storytelling fail to leave a noteworthy impression.
