We Need to Do Something Movie Storyline. Teenager Melissa (Sierra McCormick) and her family seek shelter from a storm but become trapped in their bathroom. With no sign of rescue, hours turn to days and Melissa comes to realize that she and her girlfriend Amy (Lisette Alexis) might have something to do with the horrors that threaten to tear her family – and the world – apart.
We Need to Do Something is a 2021 American psychological horror film directed by Sean King O’Grady and starring Sierra McCormick, Vinessa Shaw, Pat Healy, and Ozzy Osbourne. Based on the novella of the same name, the film centers on a family trapped in their bathroom during a tornado. The film was shot during the COVID-19 pandemic and is the first film production from Spin a Black Yarn Productions, with its co-founders Josh Malerman and Ryan Lewis serving as producers. It had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2021. The film was theatrically released by IFC Films on September 3, 2021.
The film is based on a novella of the same name written by Max Booth III, who adapted his own work into a screenplay; the success of Booth’s 2020 novel Touch the Night, published by Cemetery Dance, helped draw attention to the project. Although the novella and screenplay were completed prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, director Sean King O’Grady found resonance in the story with America’s response to the pandemic, saying “Without directly addressing the nightmare we are currently living through, Max created a hellish allegory that still manages to capture the collective trauma we’re all experiencing.”
The film was shot entirely on a soundstage in Michigan owned by production company Atlas Industries over the course of four weeks between September and October 2020; production took place in secret, with no announcements about cast or crew until filming had already wrapped. Owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, extra precautions had to be taken, including a minimal number of crewmembers.
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 65% based on 26 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website’s critics consensus reads: “While We Need to Do Something can feel as unfocused at its title, it offers eerily timely genre chills, soaked in claustrophobic dread.”
Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting gave the film a score of 2.5/5, writing that it “asks its audience to use their imagination for much of the horrors that barrage its characters, as its story is told solely within the confines of a single room”, but stated that it “isn’t interested in offering any definitive answers, only suggesting mere possibilities.”
Jessica Kiang of Variety said that the film “fails to capture the actual psychological awfulness of being trapped too near your nearest and dearest, with no end in sight”, and added: “When, late in the film, a phone’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” ringtone sounds out, it’s hard to escape the suspicion we’ve been Rickrolled.”
We Need to Do Something (2021)
Directed by: Sean King O’Grady
Starring: Sierra McCormick, Vinessa Shaw, Pat Healy, Lisette Alexis, John James Cronin, Ozzy Osbourne, Logan Kearney, Dan John Miller
Screenplay by: Max Booth III
Production Design by: Amy Williams
Cinematography by: Jean-Philippe Bernier
Film Editing by: Shane Patrick Ford
Costume Design by: Bic Owen
Art Direction by: Angie Hartley
Music by: David Chapdelaine
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: IFC Films
Release Date: September 3, 2021
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