14. HALLOWED GROUND: Made by an indigenous filmmaker or has featured indigenous cast members.

Blood quantum is the measurement of the amount of “Indian blood” that people have and is used to determine Native American status and tribal citizenship. It’s calculated by dividing the combined degree of “Indian blood” of an individual’s parents in half.  This law was created by federal and state governments to establish legally defined racial groups with many Native nations still using blood quantum as a requirement for citizenship.

Director and writer Jeff Barnaby was a member of the Canadian Mi’kmaq tribe and was married to Navajo filmmaker Sarah Del Seronde. Sadly, he died three years after making this movie, succumbing to cancer.

Gisigu (Stonehorse Lone Goeman, a member of the Tonawanda Band of Seneca), a fisherman, knows things are wrong when fish he has caught refuses to die. He calls lawman Traylor (Michael Greyeyes, a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation), who has just visited his ex-wife Joss (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, a member of the both the Blood Reserve and Sampi tribe of Norway), having to put her dog to sleep and learn that their son Joseph (Forrest Goodluck, citizen of the Three Affiliated Tribes) and his half-brother Lysol (Kiowa Gordon, a Hualapai tribe member) have been arrested for vandalism.

In jail, Joseph has been bitten by a white man, so he is taken to the hospital where his pregnant girlfriend Charlie (Olivia Scriven) comes to get him. That night, Taylor is attacked by a white woman and the hospital turns into a nightmare.

Six months later, the world knows all about Zeds, which is what they call zombies. Unlike the last several hundred years, indigenous people have the high ground, as they are immune to the virus. The Red Crow Reservation remains cut off and only accessible to those with a blood quantum that says that they are natives.

Even then, man’s inhumanity to man is not confined to other races. Lysol has his penis bit off by a zombie girl named Lilith (Natalie Liconti) — how did that get in there — and starts killing all of the undead, who soon overrun the reservation and kill almost everyone. The rest of the movie is about how the survivors either survive or don’t, but wow, Bumper (Brandon Oakes, a member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation) is somehow able to kill thousands of the walking dead with samurai sword.

Lysol should be the hero of his people, but his actions doom all of them. That said, it’s as if the world is righting itself, giving the land back to those who deserve it. Barnaby didn’t want to make a zombie movie for awhile, but then got the idea: “What if the Indians had been immune to smallpox?”