Don’t Say Its Name (2021)

(On Cable TV, October 2021) First Nation cinema is super-hot in Canada at the moment, and national cable channels are scrambling over themselves to showcase it. As a low-budget horror film, Don’t Say Its Name plays things cleverly with an invisible monster attacking its characters, leaving blood traces but not much more as the local police try to figure out what’s happening. Shot and set on a reserve, with an underlying rationale that touches upon mineral exploitation, it features a mostly-First Nations cast with two female protagonists, checking off all the possible diversity boxes along the way. It’s not exactly a great movie, but even an average horror film can be fun to watch when it’s efficiently handled, set in a somewhat different setting and stamped with the CanCon seal of approval. Writer-director Rueben Martell keeps things going at a steady pace despite a few sputters along the way and a coda that I found deeply unsatisfying. It would be easy to primarily see this film as a First Nation horror novelty alongside Blood Quantum and Rhymes for Young Ghouls—that’s pretty much the tack this review has taken so far, and I see nothing wrong to put Don’t Say Its Name on my list of recommendations for people wanting more inclusive Canadian cinema. But it’s a decent-enough horror film in its own right, with a good unseen monster and some capable action beats for its heroines. All the better for it—this is going to play for years on Canadian cable TV channels.