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(SPOILERS!) Let's face it: Blood Quantum had a great concept to run with but managed to fumble the ball halfway through the game. Sure, it's still worth a watch, if you're a diehard for zombie action, but it's not the epic that it should have been. I'm not here to judge the film on its historical or socio-political merits. Blood Quantum is the first Indigenous film of its kind, which I consider a great achievement. As a horror story, I was left wishing it turned out differently.
Set in 1981 on the Red River reserve on the eve of a zombie outbreak, the Red Crow people are biologically immune to the zombie bites. The first half of the film was excellent, engrossing, slowly building a story arc and then shocks you full of terror and gore and I was completely absorbed. Then suddenly the words appeared on the screen: "Six Months Later". Bad idea jeans. Now we're in what feels like a shitty, predictable episode of the Walking Dead. The locals have a fortified camp, they're arguing over survivors and everything turns to shit. Reservation bad boy Lysol gets fucked up, has a zombie chick chew off his dick, stabs his brother and sets the zombie chick loose inside the camp. A bunch of people die who shouldn't have, now the dad and grandpa and good guys have to make a rescue and put an end to this. Almost everybody dies. Maybe I'm missing something? Or maybe I'm nitpicking? Either way, watching the group fracture into two sides felt off to me, probably because of the extended time jump. Whatever.
There's still plenty of mind-bending gore and entrail-chewing action, all from a fresh Indigenous perspective. It was a well shot film with some solid acting and solid frights, but a plot turn I couldn't quite get behind. 7 drastic time jumps out of 10.
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