By: Henry J. Fromage (Three Beers) –
Blood Quantum (2020) Drinking Game
Take a Drink: every time someone is bitten or revealed to be bitten
Take a Drink: for each beautiful animated interlude
Take a Drink: every time the wildcard goes all wildcard
Do a Shot: when it’s katana time
Just when it feels like you’ve seen every iteration of the zombie film possible, someone else with a new angle and that spunky can-do Romero spirit goes and delivers something new.
Remember Juan of the Dead? Excellent.
Blood Quantum sets the clearly inevitable Zombie Apocalypse in a Canadian town inhabited by primarily indigenous people. The Mi’qmaq people find that they are curiously immune to this virus, even while the non-indigenous communities around them succumb to it.
A Toast
I can’t overstate how really cool this angle is. The world is finally correcting for our rampant consumption-driven civilization, but those closest to the Earth are immune. The principal threat to survival is within the Mi’qmaq community, but a within infected by the outside- by drugs and drink and pollution and patriarchy.
Bolstering the ideas is the production value director Jeff Barnaby is able to deliver here. There are great gore effects and post-apocalyptic production design- unlike many indie zombie films, there’s not an ounce of cheapness to this production.
I also dig the serious Canadian indigenous peoples indie film cred this film has, in Elle Maija-Tailfeathers it even shares an actress (and a quite excellent credits song) with another stand-out Canadian film, The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open.
On Netflix and also well worth your time.
Beer Two
The plot of Blood Quantum is fairly boilerplate in the end- you know, the real enemy is people, a functional community is threatened by family and friends pushed to the brink, with axes to grind, like, say, fear of dwindling resources, and the good members of this group of stoic survivors fight back to preserve their hope for humanity, which ultimately lies in each other, and the children. Oh yeah, and one of their midst is a badass with a samurai sword. We’ve seen this plot on The Walking Dead at least four times now.
Not that I can quibble with that samurai sword-wielding badass.
Beer Three
It’s not egregious and all the time, but speed ramping is a no go. It always looks supremely cheesy, like a something the xXx franchise murdered in it’s cradle a decade plus ago. Let it die.
Verdict
Blood Quantum is that most precious of bounties- a zombie film that feels like it’s coming from a genuinely new and unique point of view. Romero would approve.
