BLOOD QUANTUM

US, 2019, 98 minutes, Colour.

Michael Greyeyes, Elle Maija Tailfeathers, Forest Goodluck, Kiowa Gordon, Gary Farmer.

Directed by Jeff Barnaby.

This is another zombie film using all the conventions of zombie horror. And there is an indication in the title, the focus on blood.

However, it is a zombie film with a difference. A Canadian production. And the focus is on a Native American community.

The first part of the film establishes the community and the variety of characters, there is the father, fishing, cutting the salmon, and the salmon coming alive, his putting them in a box, then the visit of his son, the sheriff, and the salmon moving again. The character of this sheriff is strong, picking up calls, the rabid dog and shooting it, then finding it in the trunk of his car. There is also the relationship with his ex-wife, communicating with her, the introduction to the two boys, one on the bridge and tormenting drivers, the other surly and in jail. With this setting, there is a visit to a house, and a man berserk, violence, and biting the characters. He is a zombie.

Then the action moves forward six months.

There is the expected tension with a community affected by zombies. But, here is the difference with this story. The Native Americans are immune from the zombies while they can suffer pain inflicted by humans. The community is in chaos, the sheriff trying to keep order, helped by his father, one of his sons with his pregnant girlfriend, the other remaining surly.

Which means the latter part of the film shows a lot of the zombie horror, the non-Native Americans being infected, biting, confrontations, their being killed. In the meantime, there are many attacks on the Native Americans but their not dying.

Serious drama the end, the attempts to find a boat to escape the community, failures with the boats, the pregnant woman giving birth but her being infected and having to be killed, the survivors sailing away to an uncertain future.

The same, but different.