Blood Quantum is a Shudder original zombie flick that is currently available for rent on Amazon Prime. I had heard very positive things about this one and had been debating subscribing to Shudder… but I’d also heard enough negatives about the service to put it off. So a rental was a good alternative… and the movie is worth a look for horror fans.

Blood Quantum takes place on an indigenous reservation in Canada and stars mainly a cast of native American (Canadian?) actors which is the start of a unique twist on the zombie film. The first third of the film is about the discovery that the dead are reanimating. This act is remarkably suspenseful and actually makes zombies scary. Unfortunately, there’s a time jump and the film turns into a bog standard survival zombie film that doesn’t have many original ideas and a plot that drags it down.

This is so unfortunate because there’s so much right about the movie. It is atmospheric throughout – it looks fantastic and each scene drips with dark foreboding. The actors are, for the most part, pretty good with a charismatic (non-zombie) villain. And there’s something to be said for the allegorical nature of the film… it seems the indigenous people are immune to the zombie virus but all the local (white) townies are not. They don’t drive this home too hard but that also means if you aren’t looking for it, you might miss it. Probably a native American person might watch this film with very different eyes than me (a white guy).

But, yeah, it’s tough to forgive a movie that had so much going for it in the first act but squanders it on sub-Walking-Dead storylines and zombie action. I say sub-Walking-Dead because that show had the luxury of spending more time with the characters… this movie tries but only has the length of a short movie and it just can’t get there.

On the plus side, if you are a gore hound and you love some splurting, splattering blood and entrails, this movie’s got you covered. It’s some very impressive FX work… not necessarily better than, say, The Walking Dead but certainly on its level. In fact, there’s some “OMG” moments that are legitimately shocking… the movie “goes there” in some scenes. So kudos to the blood ‘n guts (if that’s your thing).

So it’s a royal mixed bag. It looks great, it has a solid first act that oozes with dread, it has social awareness, and it casts indigenous actors in heroic roles. On the other hand, it’s final two acts are just not original or creative enough and that drags the whole experience down. Pretty solid ending though and it’s not like I wouldn’t recommend it to the right kind of horror movie fan.

Score: 79