Film Review: Blood Quantum by Jeff Barnaby

Abstract

Jeff Barnaby’s film titled Blood Quantum (2019) entices the viewer to explore sociological dimensions of race, ethnicity, power dynamics, colonialism, and oppression. Along with an academic perspective, the addition of zombies, gore, and character regression/growth creates a thrilling journey to watch and enjoy. The film takes place on the fictional Red Crow reserve of isolated
Mi’kmaq in Canada. Traylor is a policeman on the reservation and begins to encounter animals that should be dead but come back to life. The first human encounter he experiences is when he must bail his son, Joseph, and his estranged son, Lysol, from a police station off the reservation. A man sharing the cell with them suddenly attacks and they have to subdue him, but he doesn’t back down due to being a zombie. Soon after, things begin to get more intense on and off the reservation for those who are not Indigenous. The film then jumps six months later to where the journey fully begins, and it is explained that the Indigenous individuals are immune to the virus while white people are not.