Rhymes for Young Ghouls. 2013. Canada. Written and directed by Jeff Barnaby. With Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, Glen Gould and Brandon Oakes. DCP. 88 min.
One of the most important new voices to take up horror, Mi’gmaq filmmaker Jeff Barnaby is vocally committed to Indigenous, factually grounded storytelling. Over a mere two features and a handful of shorts, he has proven his mastery of the genre film as a tool for highlighting the grievances and grief of his people. Starting from the real-life horror of Canada’s residential school system, Barnaby mixes elements of the supernatural with tragic family melodrama and an insider’s view of a blighted community. On a fictional Red Crow reservation, where Canadian First Nations people suffer under racist governmental control, a teenage girl organizes a posse of disillusioned friends to avenge their mistreatment by a sadistic white agent. Sadly, these wounds remain open: fresh revelations about the history of abuse that inspired the film were still breaking news in 2021.
The Colony. 2007. Canada. Written and directed by Jeff Barnaby. 23 min.
Barnaby puts body horror to effective use in this three-character story of “male toxicity” and interracial betrayal—themes he returned to in his feature film Blood Quantum.