Runtime: 98 minutes
Directed by: Jeff Barnaby
Starring: Michael Greyeyes, Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, Forrest Goodluck, Kiowa Gordon, Olivia Schriven
From: A collection of Canadian companies
Ever since I first heard of this picture, the premise did sound intriguing... especially once the pandemic started. A movie centered around a First Nations tribe and it offering commentary on how “the white people” treated them is ripe for discussion. As poorly as the United States treated Native Americans, so did Canadians to their indigenous people; their residential schools were a real life horror story-it was a brutal way to try and assimilate children into living a non-Native lifestyle-and the idea of a First Nations people being immune to a zombie plague was a fresh idea. The director himself is a First Nations member who grew up on the sort of reservation portrayed here. Unfortunately...
The setting is 1981 Quebec; from Wikipedia, I know that date was chosen because at one of the two tribal lands they filmed at (the Litsuguj) there were raids done by the province police that related to (unfair) rules concerning tribal people & fishing. The sheriff of the reservation and his friends/family are followed as the zombie apocalypse began. Now, this does have cliché yet that wasn't the worst aspect of it; in addition there's also too many F-bombs for my tastes... it's something I've grown more tired of. A less controversial opinion is that Blood Quantum has various problems with its plot/storytelling-there's a long stretch which really started to drag-not to mention that personally, it was hard to like too many of the characters. Sure, I laughed that there were people known as LYSOL, BUMPER and SHOOKER but for the most part I just did not care about most of them.
This was not all bad by any means; the actual filmmaking craft wasn't lousy at all. There's a nice score which sounded more authentic as an 80's soundtrack than the giant blasts of synthwave we get-enjoyable as they are to my earholes. There are gory/gross moments for those that get excited by such things, and those were realized fine. Just note that this fits into “the dog dies” category... at least this wasn't as in your face preachy with its message as it could have been. Overall, it is disappointing Blood Quantum did not work as well for me as it did many others. The director being able to incorporate some real life experiences/feelings into a played out subgenre is nice--it wasn't enough to make up for its sins.
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