"It's just a thunderstorm, everything's going to be okay."
— Diane
Based on the book of the same name, 2021 film We Need To Do Something follows a family of four as they are forced into their (strangely large) bathroom by a tornado siren. Mother Diane (Vinessa Shaw) tries to comfort young Bobby (John James Cronin) while father Robert (Pat Healy) seethes with irritation at being forced into such close quarters for what he thinks is nothing more than a thunderstorm. Meanwhile, Troubled Teen Melissa (Sierra McCormick) sits in the corner on her phone, desperately trying to contact her friend Amy (Lisette Alexis) and feeling somehow responsible for the storm. Once the storm passes, Robert attempts to open the bathroom door - only to find it blocked by a fallen tree. Things get worse from there.
We Need To Do Something contains examples of the following tropes:
- Adults Are Useless: Played with - in this situation, no one is of much use. However, Robert certainly doesn't make their plight any better.
- The Alcoholic: Robert. At one point he chugs a bottle of Listerine, and later nearly blinds himself by chewing on rubbing alcohol pads.
- Ambiguous Situation: Was the man outside shot to death by someone else? Or was he attempting to shoot something but was overpowered?
- Is the dog the family hears outside the deceased family pet Spot? Or is some other monster?
- Did Mel actually cause the tornado?
- Angrish: Robert is prone to it, especially about "useless asshole technology" like his broken cell phone.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Mel appears to see Bobby as this, but throughout the film she shows that she cares about him. She teases him playfully about enjoying eggs when he's sad, and weeps uncontrollably as he lays dying.
- Awful Wedded Life: Diane and Robert. It's the reason that Diane is having an affair. They were even fighting mere minutes before the tornado sirens go off.
- Big Fancy House: Though we only see the bathroom, the sheer size of it can be extrapolated to the rest of the house.
- Blood from the Mouth: During Mel's first Nightmare Sequence, she vomits blood because of the dog tongue in her stomach.
- Blood-Spattered Innocents: Mel gets covered in blood after being attacked by the dog outside, and Diane ends up in a similar situation when she finally breaks out of the bathroom and goes outside.
- Bottle Episode: The entire film takes place in the family's bathroom, save for a few flashbacks of Mel and Amy's relationship.
- The Cameo: Of all people, Ozzy Osbourne plays the dog who may or may not be Spot.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Robert drops Mel's phone after using the flashlight to try to see outside, his own phone is not working for some unspecified reason, and Diane's battery dies early in the film. Bobby, being a small child, doesn't have his own.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Robert lets out several throughout the film, but the most truly epic one is after he's unable to get his cell phone working.Robert: Fucking piece of shit! Stupid fucking battery! You fucking useless asshole technology! You fucking cunt! Fuck you!
- Death of a Child: Bobby, who dies of a snakebite.
- Demonic Possession: What Amy thinks has happened to her as part of her experimentation with witchcraft.
- The Dog Bites Back: If the dog that the family hears is in fact Spot, he may be attacking Mel for cutting his tongue out post-mortem and using it in a spell.
- Dog Got Sent to a Farm: Bobby thinks that deceased family pet Spot "ran away." Of course, Spot very well may have come Back from the Dead and visited the family. And may now sound like OzzyOsbourne. And gotten his tongue ripped out. Again.
- Dysfunctional Family: Oh yeah.
- Gainax Ending: Overlaps with No Ending. Diane returns from the outside world, covered in blood and refusing to talk about what she saw out there. A sudden loud noise makes both Diane and Mel scream - and cut to red.
- Gone Horribly Right: Amy and Mel's spell to make Joe stop spreading rumors about them works... because he chokes on his own tongue and dies.
- Gorn: Mel getting attacked by the dog through the crack in the door results in her somehow ripping out its tongue, complete with bloody veins.
- During Mel's first Nightmare Sequence later in the film, she rips open her own stomach and pulls out the dog tongue she used to curse (and accidentally kill) Joe. In her second, Amy appears in the bathroom and attacks her with ropes of viscera that burst out of the scars on her wrist and her mouth.
- Robert biting off the head of the rattlesnake.
- Hope Spot: The family hears a man outside and Robert is able to get his attention, but the man is almost immediately either gunned down or killed by something before he's able to get to the family.
- Hostile Weather: A tornado hits the family house, knocks a tree in front of the only exit to the bathroom, and may have killed the rest of the people in the neighborhood. Also, it may have been caused by a demon.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Discussed but averted. After Bobby's death, Robert talks briefly about eating him to survive but it never comes to pass because Mel kills him first.
- Improvised Weapon: A shard of broken mirror and a snake are both used to great effect near the end of the film.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Not said aloud, but after Robert drives out the rattlesnake the first time, he immediately goes to the cabinet and chugs out of a bottle of Listerine with a positively manic look on his face.
- Locked in a Room: The entire premise of the film - the family is trapped inside their bathroom by a fallen tree.
- Mama Bear: Diane, especially when Robert tries to kill Mel for her supposed involvement in the tornado.Diane: Speak to my daughter like that again and I'll slit your fucking throat!
- Madness Mantra: Diane's "Everything's going to be okay," said throughout the film but repeated incessantly after she returns to the bathroom from the outside world.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: A driving question throughout the film, especially in regards to Mel's wondering whether she'd somehow caused the tornado by casting a spell with Amy. Diane returning to the bathroom covered in blood and nearly catatonic after venturing outside seems to support the latter.
- Nobody Poops: Averted - all of the characters use the toilet mostly onscreen. Probably because the movie takes place in a bathroom.
- Offing the Offspring: Robert attempts to kill Mel after she confesses to her spells with Amy, and that she believes she caused the storm. It ends instead in Patricide - Mel is forced to kill Robert with a shard of broken mirror while he attacks Diane.
- Parental Neglect: Robert. Apparently he wasn't even present for his own son's birth and was instead drunk at a bowling alley.
- In addition, Diane says that she was still cooking for the family while being nine months pregnant.
- Self-Harm: Both Mel and Amy are seen engaging in this, and Mel repeatedly picks at the horizontal scab across her wrist during the film. They also both slit their wrists as part of the ritual to exorcise the demon inside Amy.
- Snakes Are Sinister: A rattlesnake slithers through the opening in the bathroom door, frightening the hell out of the family. And it just keeps coming back - biting and killing Bobby and later biting Robert. It only stops showing up after Robert bites its head off.
- Suck Out the Poison: Robert insists on doing this after Bobby is bitten by a rattlesnake. Diane instead tries to use a tourniquet to prevent the venom from reaching the heart. Of course, as in real life, it's already too late.
- No one attempts to do it for Robert when he's later bitten in the face.
- Surreal Horror: Mel's nightmares are a prime example, but also happens in the waking world with a rattlesnake that somehow stalks the family and a dog voices by Ozzy Osbourne.
- Tears of Blood: Robert gets these after eating several rubbing alcohol pads.
- The Voice: Both the man and the dog outside are only ever heard, never seen. Unless, that is, the dog is Spot - who we see as a corpse several times in flashbacks and nightmares.
- Wham Line: "I'm a good boy!"
