40 Acres

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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R.T. Thorne has a tense and thoughtful debut portrait of apocalyptic life in “40 Acres,” which focuses on a family whose ancestors settled in 1875 in rural Canada after the American Civil War. The film enhances the zombie genre film by acknowledging white privilege and colonialism and giving indigenous people positions of heroism. It is as nerve-racking as any Danny Boyle film while at the same time offering a lesson in history.

In present day rural Canada, the Freeman family lives in an isolated farmhouse after national bouts of disease war and famine.

Now there are reports of cannibalism in some tribes.

Hailey, (Danielle Deadwyler) the matriarch of the family lives with Galen (Michael Greyeyes) Emmanuel (Kataem O’Connor), Danis (Jaeda LeBlanc) and Raine (Leenah Robinson).

The family leads a life of patrolling hunting and gathering. The very act of breathing consumes them.

Their daily agricultural routine is upset when they learn that a group of marauding cannibals have taken hold upon neighboring lands. The kids are instructed to be highly suspicious of stray people and to trust no one.

There is only one problem: Emmanuel is a teenager. One day on patrol, he sees the alluring Dawn (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) swimming in the lake, and he becomes transfixed. In the next few days he takes Dawn by force because he wants company.

Hailey is livid and understandably so, thinking that Dawn could be of the cannibal tribe.

Emmanuel takes off with Dawn on the motorbike wanting independence.

This film is highly compelling and impactful. It is all the better for its reliance on character development rather than any jump scare.

Danielle Deadwyler is superb as the mother with more fight in her than Mel Gibson in The Outback, while Michael Greyeyes makes visceral poetry out of all Native American struggles for existence and representation.

Once the action starts it never lets go and every conversation contains empathy and poignance, a very rare thing in a horror film.

The Thanksgiving scene, deeply symbolic, puts primary importance upon indigenous people once more and also proves that history with its swinging pendulum of positive and negative charges, moves in cycles.

Through fine details, narrative depth, and patience in storytelling, “40 Acres” is an anthropological thriller with dramatic charge, bloody voltage, and thoughtful commentary.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com