We are what we are movie review

There's much to savor in Jim Mickle's "We Are What We Are," a horror film about a kind of religious fanaticism that's gone way off the rails. The movie saves most of its modest number of jolts for its last quarter or so, which makes them all the more intense. They stick in your craw - and be warned, they're not for the squeamish.

Something's off about the Parker family, who live in a depressed part of the Catskills under the strict reign of God-fearing, bearded patriarch Frank (Bill Sage). Teenage daughters Iris (Ambyr Childers) and Rose (Julia Garner) have the ethereal look of 19th century portrait paintings. Their young brother, Rory (Jack Gore), seems perpetually hungry.

As the film opens, their mother abruptly collapses and dies of an unspecified illness during an errand in town. Despite his grief, Frank insists that the family continue its annual preparations for a ritual that involves several days of fasting. The event is called Lamb's Day, and we see in flashbacks its origins in dire circumstances involving the family's 18th century forebears.

The girls, who are really the film's focus, carry out their extremely unpleasant duties with great reluctance. Meanwhile, the local doctor (Michael Parks) has done an autopsy on Mrs. Parker, with a disturbing finding. We learn that years earlier, the doctor's daughter disappeared.

Soon comes a report that another young woman is missing. Torrential rains uncover human body parts. Iris, who's retained some hint of a yearning for normality, attracts the attentions of a young deputy. The doctor presses hard to get to the bottom of things.

Director Mickle ("Stake Land") uses the basic story, with many changes, from a 2010 Mexican movie of the same title, made by Jorge Michel Grau. Mickle's version has all the American Gothic trappings, maybe even pouring it on a bit thick at times. Despite the generally somber tone, there are a few moments when he seems to be tweaking genre buffs' memories of movies by the likes of Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper.

But I don't think he's kidding about his main point, which is that in certain remote corners of America, nightmarish, crackpot religious beliefs take root and grow, and are passed on from generation to generation.

A final note, mainly for non-buffs: Be prepared for an ending that's genuinely berserk

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