Movie Review: 'We Need to Do Something'

As a storm overtakes a small suburban town, an internal storm rages inside the suburban home of a divided family of four in the horror thriller, We Need to Do Something. Directed by Sean King O’Grady, We Need to Do Something stars Pat Healy as Robert, the agitated father, Vinessa Shaw plays Diane, the secretive but loving mother to Melissa, played by Sierra McCormick, and Bobby, played by John James Cronin.

As we join the story, a large storm has spooked a family of four enough that they’ve moved into their bathroom, the safest and most well fortified room in their home. They believe they will only have to ride out the storm for a few hours and then it will be over, but there are hints that something more than a mere storm is plaguing them. Phones aren’t working, text messages and calls are going unanswered, and daughter Sierra appears desperate to reach someone named Amy (Lisette Alexis), someone whose identity is revealed later in flashback.

Mom and dad are not on good terms, they jab at each other and drop hints that one or both of them may have committed infidelity. They talk around it for the sake of their children but the simmering tension between Robert and Diane is highly reflective of the overall charged atmosphere of We Need to Do Something. The plot fully kicks in when a tree crashes through the house and comes to rest in front of the bathroom door, trapping the family inside.

With no food and non working phones, the family is faced with waiting for someone to come rescue them but how long can they wait? We Need to Do Something has only 1 location for most of the movie, the 4 walls of a suburban bathroom. That’s quite a challenging way to make a movie and director Sean King O’Grady does wonders with this space using it to push these characters deeper into their deeply disturbed orbit.

Pat Healy is a standout villain in We Need to Do Something. With his short sleeve shirt and tie and his Napoleonic sense of entitlement, Healy is a ball of radiating frustration and unresolved resentments. Healy communicates this with looks and gestures, gritted teeth, balled up fists and a lip he’s about to bite right through as he bounces between the poles of wanting to hold his tongue for the sake of his children and desperately wanting to lash out at both his family and the world.

Healy’s coiled intensity rises and falls throughout the story, bellowing at some points and cowering heelishly in other moments. You get the sense from the moment the family gets locked inside the bathroom, if one of these people were going to suggest cannibalism, it’s going to be this guy. Healy gives Robert a rat-like quality where you would not be too surprised if eventually he murdered the whole family to save himself.

Sierra McDonald is the ostensible lead of We Need to Do Something. Melissa is the only character, among the family, that we see outside of the bathroom. Flashbacks give us the story of Melissa meeting and falling in love with Amy. It’s never stated out loud that this is a forbidden romance but you can certainly sense that Robert would have a problem with his teenage daughter if he were aware of the extent of Melissa and Amy’s relationship. He’s just that kind of guy where other people’s happiness only feeds his prejudices and insecurities.

Then again, just how happy are Melissa and Amy? What role does Amy play in what is happening in the outside world? There is a heavy note of the supernatural at play in We Need to Do Something and the movie very cleverly waits until the end before leaning to one side or the other, natural disaster or supernatural disaster. A storm as a metaphor for the internal conflict of a family is a very obvious metaphor but when you add the supernatural aspect, it heightens the tension and gives the familiar a kick.

The film is creepy and tense and the complications that director Sean King O'Grady adds, including more traditional horror elements, violence and gore, are well employed and are revealed in the rise and fall of the plot, a rollercoaster ride of emotions that slow and tense raising the pulse, racing downward and then pulling back. It's a terrific piece of horror film direction, writing and staging.

We Need to Do Something opens in limited theatrical release and for online streaming rental on August 27th, 2021.