10. THE FIRST WAVE: One made by an indigenous filmmaker or has indigenous cast members.

Directed and written by Rodrick Pocowatchit, who also plays Dax Wildhorse, The Dead Can’t Dance is a zombie movie about three Native Americans — Guy Ray Pocowatchit is Ray Wildhorse and T.J. Williams is his son Eddie — who run out of gas and walk into there being no room in hell, as the line is read.

Eddie has really been raised by Dax, his uncle, while his father Ray drinks away his days. On their way to Eddie’s college, everything falls apart. Now, this is a horror movie, but not a great one. But the fact that the Native American leads are so convincingly being themselves while also not being the finest of actors give this a lot of charm. Their identity doesn’t feel forced. It feels authentic.

It looks like the lowest of low budgets.

Yet I love the concept: an airborne disease turns everyone into zombies except for those with Native American blood, which makes them immune. I wish Pocowatchit had the money and crew to make this a high end production but maybe it would lose the charm that it has now. He’s also made a time travel film called Red Hand, a drama called Sleepdancer and Dancing On the Moon, which has three Native Americans also getting stranged yet in this story we’re more concerned with characters learning who they are and not at all about zombie end of the world horror.

You can watch this on Tubi.