[Film Review] Celluloid Screams Festival: We Need To Do Something (2021)

We Need to Do Something (2021) takes place in a huge bathroom, where a family of four wait out a tornado. As the storm passes, the family realise they are trapped and tensions rise while they wait for rescue. Quiet mediator Mum - Diane (Vinessa Shaw) and alcoholic, angry Dad – Robert (Pat Healy) are a couple on the verge of divorce. Their children are confidently angsty Melissa (Sierra McCormick) who believes she is to blame for the storm – and inquisitive and sensitive brother Bobby (John James Cronin). 

I had a chat with writer Max Booth III about his inspiration for We Need to Do Something and how he managed to get his vision on to the big screen – read it here.

I love a film concept where the action takes place in one location. However, these can often be difficult to execute. It’s hard to keep momentum and audience engagement when there is not much happening visually on screen such as different scenes and locations. We Need to Do Something  keeps you absolutely engaged by maintaining the pace, moving through the plot at speed as the family deteriorates due to the stress, hunger and fear permeating the bathroom. A survival film always gets me thinking ‘what would I do in the situation?’, I think I am the brother in this example – asking for stories and spouting off facts about tornados. 

The cast are fantastic, Pat Healy as our ‘bad dad’ is a standout. The quick biting dialogue keeps it exciting as the characters allow their once hidden hatred for each other come to the surface as their outlook begins to look hopeless. But, the film allows itself to be funny and silly where it needs to be - there is a moment where the family, facing starvation, decide to eat something gross. Robert, the father, is everyone in the audience as he expresses his repulsion - “Fuck this”. In an era where it feels as though some horror films are super serious, or not allowing themselves to indulge fully into the horror, keeping it at arm’s length - here you are free to have some laughs and scares within the same scene. 

We Need to Do Something throws everything at the screen from natural disasters, witchcraft, affairs, alcoholism, demons and the scariest of them all- inter family relationships. I had a lot of fun with this film and I think you will too.

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