Blood Quantum (2019)

(On Cable TV, September 2020) I’ve been burnt out on so many zombie movies over the past few years that it takes a lot to get me interested in any new one, but Blood Quantum has just the right angle to grab my attention. A Canadian movie written and directed by Mi’kmaqi Jeff Barnaby, featuring a cast largely made up of indigenous actors, it’s a horror film that revisits a zombie apocalypse with a twist: indigenous people are immune to the “zed” virus, whereas white people aren’t. (This great idea is somewhat undermined by fish and dogs also being turned into zombies, but the rule of cool applies here, as it leads to an intriguing prologue.) Set during the zombie outbreak and then skipping forward six months later, Blood Quantum does master the basic elements of the zombie movie: it’s almost inconceivably gory, with chainsaws and snowblowers being put to good use. The cinematography is much better than average for low-budget horror films, and the film does get its dark zombie-killing gags right. The extra layer on top is the integral critique of white colonialism baked into the premise—there’s a clear sense of us-versus-them here, with all white people being time-bombs liable to explode into undead killing machines at any moment. There are clever touches all over the place, from post-mortem one-liners being delivered in subtitled Mi’kmaqi to the indigenous characters immediately burning a blanket brought in by a white refugee—there’s clearly a sociopolitical critique here that cuts deep for Canadian audiences. The action is brutal, and the ending doesn’t pull any punches in killing off most of its cast. Cast-wise, the standout performance here is from Stonehorse Lone Goeman as a grizzled old man who proves a terrific action hero. The result is probably my favourite zombie film in recent memory, even if I don’t quite think that it’s as good as it could be. For instance, I would have liked to hear a bit of French considering the location of the film in Québec. Burnaby has a good eye for images and composition, but his handling of the actors is a bit inconsistent—some lines of dialogue are delivered awkwardly, even as other line readings are quite good. The low budget of the film is most obvious in the frustrating time skip one third of the way in the film. Other elements of the script had me thinking that the film had picked the wrong genre: In sticking close to horror tropes, Blood Quantum steadily kills off its cast in a spiral of nihilism, whereas a more unsettling story could have been within reach if it had gone for more expansive science fiction—I’m specifically thinking about portraying white genocide through viral infection, and indigenous nations taking back Turtle Island. But I won’t fault Barnaby for delivering the film he wanted to produce—Blood Quantum is about as provocative a zombie film as has been released recently, its gore effects are top-notch and it has just enough political material to make it interesting. [September 2020: Also have a look at Barnaby’s previous Rhymes for Young Ghouls—the thematic and stylistic links between the two movies are profound, with Blood Quantum arguably being a sequel for some of the first film’s characters.]