What We Become

Name: What We Become
Genre: Thriller, Horror
Released: May 13, 2016
Duration: 85 min
Rating: 60

2016

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Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Critic Reviews

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Mixed or average reviews based on 8 Ratings

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5.4

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5.4	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 8 Ratings

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What We Become

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Movie Details & Credits

IFC Midnight | Release Date: May 13, 2016 | Not Rated

Summary: The Johansson family—mom, dad, their rebellious teenage son, and young daughter—are looking forward to a quiet summer in their idyllic suburban town. But in the blink of an eye, things go from blissful to berserk when a horrifying plague tears through the community. After a string of grisly deaths, the government puts the neighborhood onThe Johansson family—mom, dad, their rebellious teenage son, and young daughter—are looking forward to a quiet summer in their idyllic suburban town. But in the blink of an eye, things go from blissful to berserk when a horrifying plague tears through the community. After a string of grisly deaths, the government puts the neighborhood on lockdown. But one thing soon becomes terrifyingly clear: you can’t quarantine the apocalypse. [IFC Midnight]… Expand

Director: Bo Mikkelsen

Genre(s): Thriller, Horror

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 85 min

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Critic Reviews

Chuck Bowen

May 9, 2016

When Bo Mikkelsen springs his traditional yet cathartic climax, it's earned because the violence matters truly as violation. Read full review

Jeannette Catsoulis

May 12, 2016

What We Become is a very pretty movie with a very dark heart. The payoff is brutal, but earned. Read full review

Noel Murray

May 12, 2016

Fans of blood and guts won’t find what they’re looking for here (until the final 10 minutes, that is); but serious-minded genre fans should feel satisfied. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Brian Tallerico

May 13, 2016

There are large chunks of What We Become that feel like something we’ve seen before, a repeat of the AMC series perhaps, and just when it’s getting interesting, it ends, almost like it’s a pilot for a new series. Read full review

The Guardian Jordan Hoffman

May 17, 2016

It’s the same low-budget horror flick you’ve seen many times before, but it’s nice to see some local variants on a familiar theme. Read full review

Rob Staeger

May 11, 2016

Undead fare has to break new ground to stand out from the ravenous crowd, something What We Become never attempts. What might have been the best zombie movie of 2004 can't help looking a little sickly in 2016. Read full review

John DeFore

Jun 7, 2016

The movie never really achieves the claustrophobic, under-siege atmosphere of Night of the Living Dead. And it's kind of a good thing we're not trapped with this family, since, despite some fine acting by Mille Dinesen (as Gustav's mom) and others, Mikkelsen's script offers too little character development to keep us interested in them. Read full review

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User Reviews

Meth-dude

Jun 20, 2016

The movie starts with some promising ideas and the acting wasn't too bad but, the movie becomes boring halfway through and the last half is just another generic B zombie/contaminated movie.If you like zombies movies and action you should give it a try but even then, there is high chances youThe movie starts with some promising ideas and the acting wasn't too bad but, the movie becomes boring halfway through and the last half is just another generic B zombie/contaminated movie.If you like zombies movies and action you should give it a try but even then, there is high chances you won't like it.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

TheQuietGamer

Oct 13, 2016

It's nice to see a zombie flick that takes itself seriously and goes for a more realistic approach. Unfortunately what this one fails to do is be interesting. A slow pace isn't always a bad thing, but when you're characters flat and there just isn't anything happening, it's hard to careIt's nice to see a zombie flick that takes itself seriously and goes for a more realistic approach. Unfortunately what this one fails to do is be interesting. A slow pace isn't always a bad thing, but when you're characters flat and there just isn't anything happening, it's hard to care about what's going on.

There isn't a likable character in the bunch. Almost the entire film consists of watching these characters sit around and peer out there windows under quarantine and wondering what's going on. The answer? Not much.

The problem is that it's going for an atmosphere of mystery to build tension. It just doesn't work because anyone with any with zombie films has seen it all before. The Danish aren't able to bring anything new or exciting to the table. Things only get interesting when these character finally decide to leave the house. By the time that happens there are only twenty minutes left to sit through. All the build up and then it cuts out as soon as things start to look interesting.

Overall it's a dull zombie movie. One with predictability galore and crap characters. It's nice to see the concept taken seriously though. Lord knows we have too many b-films rearing their undead heads. It's just that none of that makes all of this any less boring.… Expand

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meydianarizki21

Oct 18, 2020

What a shame.
I had hoped for a good Danish horror film, but this did not deliver. It started promising with a great cold opening only to immediately ruin this by having its title screen actually be a try-hard, epilepsy-inducing jump scare. The juxtaposition between these two clips left meWhat a shame.
I had hoped for a good Danish horror film, but this did not deliver. It started promising with a great cold opening only to immediately ruin this by having its title screen actually be a try-hard, epilepsy-inducing jump scare. The juxtaposition between these two clips left me confused as to what tone the film was trying to establish. It did not improve when it became apparent that the main character of the film was not the one featured in this opening but was instead going to be a poorly written and poorly acted teenage boy, who (of course?) needs to have his own romance with the neighbor's teenage daughter so that we can have sex scenes with her and show her off as much as possible without leaving PG-territory. One may wonder why they bothered to have a poorly executed teenage romance in a zombie flick, but I guess they had it because they barely got any zombies. The zombies doesn't show up until the last 10 minutes of this 1 hour and 17 minutes-long film, actually. I assume they tried to build tension, but that doesn't work because we already know how zombies generally look like. I actually think it's more likely that they just didn't have a big enough budget for makeup to have zombies throughout. Also, I have a problem with them waiting so long to reveal zombies as I believe you can go about presenting your zombie story in one of two ways: either you start the story already being post the zombie apocalypse or you show the turn in full during the first 5-20 minutes or first act. This film is a miracle: it spends the entirety of it's runtime making its transition opposed to get it out of the way because it needs time for the teenage romance. The reason to why you get the transition to zombie apocalypse done relatively quickly is to show it as a natural disaster that cannot be stopped, as if it's interrupting the plot of the film itself. It may slowly build in the background until it infests the film completely. A film turning into a zombie film is meant to simulate the turn that happens to people becoming zombies. If you go slowly about this as they decided to do you fail at providing immediacy. This is the first problem while the second is that building up to showing zombies throughout the film puts too much emphasis on their presence. In a zombie film, zombies are not supposed to be the main focus of horror: while zombies are predictable and run on instincts, humans in critical situations are completely unpredictable. We know what happens if a zombie gets close to our main characters, but not what will happen if other humans gets close - will they be friendly or hostile? You focus on this relationship to ask how humans would react in stressed conditions. The zombies should function as a spectacle and constant reminder of danger to our characters, but we should be invested in the well-being of our main characters first in order for us to care. Done correctly, you can have your audience hooked whether type of media your zombie story appears as. I would even go as far to say you don't need zombies as movies like It Comes at Night proved to me. However, given the stale acting, the misguided understanding of our care in whether or not the unlikable teenager gets rewarded for his perverted interested in the teenage girl and the ridiculous cliches throughout (just because you are the first Danish zombie film it doesn't give you carte blanche at the buffet), this film failed at engaging me. You are not supposed to root for the death of your characters, as this film had me do. The Japanese proved that it's possible to make a fantastic zombie flick with a low budget with One Cut of the Dead, so it should be possible for Danes as well in time. This film provides nothing new to the table and fails at entertaining as intended.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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