WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING
(June 2021)
“Most things come to an end, don’t
they?”
A family of four retreat to their spacious bathroom
to shelter from what seems to be, at best, a passing thunderstorm, at worst, a
tornado.
Tension within the enclosed space quickly takes
root though, from both interpersonal dynamics, and the gradual, creeping
realization that there are far worse things than a tornado…
“Mom, I think
something might be wrong. Like, with the storm, something bad might be
happening.”
Sean King O’Grady’s directorial feature debut, We Need to Do Something, is a nastily
effective piece of apocalypse cinema in micro, as we witness the slights and stresses
that tear a family asunder, even as some perhaps darker disintegration takes
place outside their enforced shelter.
Max Booth III’s screenplay--based on his novella of
the same name--builds the familial strife steadily but surely, punctuating the
simmering conflict with a number of WTF moments that push the narrative into disturbingly
surreal territory. (Not to mention that unsettling
‘80’s hit needle drop, one of those movie moments guaranteed to forever
alter the way you consider a musical track.)
The film also proves to have a darkly comic streak,
bolstered in no small part by Pat Healy, whose Robert is one of the most inept,
contemptible cinematic fathers to stain the screen in recent memory.
So if single, enclosed settings aren’t a trigger
for you (in our current, shared Global Moment), then We Need to Do Something comes with a hearty ¡Qué horror! recommendation.
“I’m a good
boy!”
(We Need to
Do Something OS courtesy of impawards.com.)
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