Poster: Indian reserve immune to zombies in Blood Quantum

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Back in June, Shudder picked up the U.S. rights to writer-director Jeff Barnaby's zombie horror flick BLOOD QUANTUM starring Michael Greyeyes, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, and Forrest Goodluck. And today we have the film's official poster to share with you guys. Check it out below!

It centers on the dead coming back to life outside the isolated Mi'gMaq reserve of Red Crow. The hook? The reserve's indigenous inhabitants are strangely immune to the zombie plague. More specifically, the Toronto International Film Festival described the film with this lengthy rundown:

The term "blood quantum" refers to a colonial blood measurement system that is used to determine an individual's Indigenous status, and is criticized as a tool of control and erasure of Indigenous peoples. The words take on even more provocative implications as the title of Jeff Barnaby's sophomore feature, which grimly depicts an apocalyptic scenario where in an isolated "Mi'gmaq" community discover they are the only humans immune to a zombie plague. As the citizens of surrounding cities flee to the "Mi'gmaq" reserve in search of refuge from the outbreak, the community must reckon with whether to let the outsiders in – and thus risk not just the extinction of their tribe but of humanity, period. The severe and scathing portrait of post-colonial Indigenous life and culture that Barnaby previously captured in Rhymes for Young Ghouls here deftly collides with the iconography and violent hyperbole typical of the zombie genre.

The Undead are spectacularly and gruesomely dispatched via samurai swords, chainsaws, shotguns, and makeshift axes, while the living – a terrific ensemble cast led by Michael Greyeyes (Woman Walks Ahead and Fear the Walking Dead) – endure the paranoid pressures that such dire straits foment. In this iteration, however, Barnaby takes full advantage of the canvas zombie films regularly afford for cultural critique, exploring racism, colonialism, and the very real threat of extinction that Indigenous communities have experienced for generations. Further accentuated by arresting animated chapter breaks that instill a cool comic-book aesthetic to its horrific proceedings, Blood Quantum is as powerful an entry into the annals of zombie cinema as the devastating conclusion to George Romero's 1968 original Night of the Living Dead, and a meaningful demonstration of how marginalized voices – when given the opportunity – can resurrect a tired genre with incendiary new life.

Written and directed by Jeff Barnaby it stars Michael Greyeyes (FEAR THE WALKING DEAD), Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (ON THE FARM) and Forrest Goodluck (THE REVENANT) along with Kiowa Gordon, Olivia Scriven, Stonehorse Lone Goeman, Brandon Oakes, William Belleau, Devery Jacobs, and Gary Farmer. John Christou and Robert Vroom produce while Todd Brown, Gabe Scarpelli, and Ryan Shoup serve as executive producers.

As mentioned above, Shudder picked up the U.S. rights to the zombie thriller back in June. We'll let you know when there's a release date.