Popular reviews

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★½

  What separates this from the rest of the endless current zombie wave isn't the anti-colonialist subtext or that it's the work of indigenous filmmakers, although both of those things are certainly admirable. More importantly it confidently rides a line between the usual Walking Dead-style bleakness and actual satire, with a ton of terrific gore and some real honest-to-God humor instead of camp or silliness. A very good splatter film.

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★½ 1

  As George Romero first discovered — and hordes of other filmmakers have since refined — zombies are a fun and effective vehicle for addressing the most intractable anxieties of the modern world; even bone-deep social ills have a funny way of seeming more digestible when explored through a story about people rabidly eating each other’s entrails. A scattershot but clear-eyed bit of midnight madness that renders colonialism as a literal plague, Jeff Barnaby’s “Blood Quantum” may bite off more human flesh than it can chew, but this hopeful modern howl against the indignities suffered by Canada’s indigenous population (the Mi’gMaq in particular) is still a credit to its genre. It may not be a great zombie movie, but it’s a uniquely powerful reminder of why zombie movies are great.

  READ THE FULL REVIEW ON INDIEWIRE

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  Review by Ian West ★★★½ 7

  I love how this movie opens... immediately setting up the perfect fog drenched lived in atmos for a movie like this to breathe.

  Plenty of sociopolitical subtext and a premise I found to be quite inspired, Blood Quantum features some great performances, wonderful cinematography, top notch/tastefully done gore, and a score (especially towards the end) that really stuck to my bones—sounding like it actually came from an 80’s horror movie instead of the usual carpenter wannabe pulsating synth score that’s festering in so many movies now.

  Sure there’s some familiar tropes here as far as zombie films go, but there’s a meaningful weight behind this besides the usual ‘humans are the real monsters’ drop that undercuts genre films such as these. Loses…

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  Review by josh lewis ★★★ 4

  rock solid premise (providing an underseen racial context to the extinction anxieties of the zombie genre) and barnaby has good compositional instincts. it looks good and a lot of the gore is stellar. but this needed 7 more drafts on that screenplay, way too many cliche surfaces to really sink into or, honestly, even feel it.

  edit: have upped rating slightly on rewatch, was able to get over the slight disappointment i had at TIFF that this was more of a derivative Walking Dead familial melodrama than the full-blown, angry Day of the Dead on a native reserve i was hoping for but i've watched a lot of really shitty new release horror recently and revisiting this it was honestly refreshing to watch something that wasn't a vague, droning "Trauma" a24 thing and just simply a competently-made splatter film with very few pretensions of being more than that.

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★ 2

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Written, directed and edited by Jeff Barnaby, Blood Quantum is filled with body fluids, intestines and advantageous expressions on colonialism. It's a well-made zombie horror which, despite an irritating inclination to deliver too much expository dialogue, features some kinetically staged set-pieces. The zombie genre has repeatedly carried varying degrees of social criticisms, and the transcendental portrayal here of a too-often distorted image of native Americans is particularly pleasing.

  And while it initially appears like it's going to play out in rather a typical genre fare fashion, the film takes an interesting turn at the end of the first act that time jumps the storyline six months to a secure reservation that has become a haven for the indigenous people who are resistant to the virus. From thereon, it delineates similarities between white European expansionists ushering in infectious diseases to the indigenous people, and this theme assumes centre stage allowing this B-movie to standout from usual exploitation films.

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 2

  The questions that arise when engaging in genre cinema are about which rules to follow and which rules to break. Which subgenres, which homages, which responses, which new grounds to explore? Entering into genre cinema with the intention of asserting a political identity, a cultural identity, a national identity, adds further questions - what will be said if I break this rule? What does it mean for the political or cultural content if I reference this other film? What are the implications of combining these?

  Blood Quantium makes explicit its intention to address issues of race, nation, and violence, taking its title from a controversial policy of determining one's race via the amount of "native blood" one has and using…

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  Review by Joe Lynch ★★★½

  This one snuck up on me...
  In a landscape where a new zombie pandemic flick is a dull dime a dozen, Jeff Barnaby’s take on the undead is fresh, relevant and GORY AS FUCK. 
  Really enjoyed the places this one went.
  Must watch on Shudder.

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  Review by Sara Clements ★★★½

  Presented in lush and vivid animation is the image of a pregnant Indigenous woman tied to the earth. Her fetus growing in its waters, with bright green vein-like strands connecting them. There’s animation, Indigenous imagery, like this a few times throughout Jeff Barnaby’s second feature film, but the distant lights of a town is a reminder of sacred land lost.

  Blood Quantum is a Canadian feature set in and around the isolated Mi’gmaq reserve of Red Crow in 1981. The title refers to, as the press notes state, the colonial policy of “determining indigeneity based on the percentage of your indigenous heritage.” If you have anything less than 50% of Indigenous blood quantum, you cannot call yourself Indigenous. It’s a…

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  Review by Sin ✊🏿 ★★½ 4

  By my lights, Blood Quantum has a lot of potential but said potential is mostly wasted.

  Sure, I appreciate the clear sociopolitical subtext and the unique take on the zombie genre. And I'm always down for increased representation for marginalized people. (Though not all representation is equal - e.g., nuanced and positive representation contra representation that reifies harmful controlling images, stereotypes, etc.)

  Something that I've made a point to regularly mention in my professional work throughout the years:

  📢 This is a nation erected on stolen land.📢

  The past is always saddled to the present, and Blood Quantum is a painful reminder of the reverberating ravages colonialist oppression has on Natives and their land, even when subtly communicated.

  All that…

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  Review by Matt Winfield ★★★★ 5

  🌜Daily Horror Hunt #27 (Sept. 2020)🌛
  [30] Watch a horror you missed from 2019.

  Went into this totally blind, and WOW, what an awesome lil' surprise! Blood Quantum lays out an incredibly unique, Indigenous Native perspective that I've never seen touched upon in horror before. Colonialism vibes once again rear their ugly head for a group of people who've already seen their fair share of genocidal bullshit, a hardened tribe facing the same fear of extinction but now with an undead twist. Struggling between revenge for past sins, or forgiveness for the sake of humanity as a whole. White people are the diseased blanket, and really, can you blame some folks for wanting to toss it on the fire...

  And…

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  Review by Gary Kline ★★★½ 2

  Scavenger Hunt 67 (October)
  Film 18/31 - Task 12  - A movie with an indigenous director

  Hooptober 7.0
  48/39 - Bonus Watch 3/2 movies from this year
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  A gnarly, gory zombie horror film with a novel enough premise - a zombie outbreak where indigenous people are immune.   Assured direction, good performances and some especially gruesome practical effects elevate this a notch or two, though it looses steam a bit toward the end.

  It explores some interesting issues of “otherness” with the indigenous people as the ones in power, and the debate within the group as to how to handle the potentially infected and susceptible survivors.  Ample zombie kill gore and good action and when the final act kicks off with a particularly gruesome blow job gone wrong, the film really kicks into gear.

  Well worth your time if you appreciate the sub genre.

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  Review by cherryz ★★★★

  Day 23. RCDooms9113 Just Die Already list.

  Dead hings coming back to life. Well it's now time to become veggie.

  I went back to my youth. That shit on the bridge was hilarious and brought back memories of my daft pal.

  Baby's scoffed, dogs offed, chainsaws to the brain & Hendrix....wait did I make that part up.

  It's Apocalypto. Whoever is immune is gonna shake their dick about. Yeah we care. Must be hard to keep clean.

  Here's a question for you if a loved one of yours had been bitten would you leave it to others to distinguish or would you grow a set and do your own business? I damn well would. Love the fuck out of them I'm taking care of them and I hope they'd do it to me