ABSTRACT
Blood Quantum and the postcolonial zombie films contemporary with it provide objects of study to illustrate some of the distinctions between postcolonial horror and the horror of Indigeneity that exists concomitant with a continuing colonial occupation, often referred to as paracolonialism. Blood Quantum is the most expensive Indigenous-directed film to come from Canada, and its postponed release in theaters because of the covid-19 pandemic produced a particularly intense interest in the film and arguably positioned it as one of the most notable examples of paracolonial horror, a film that unsettles colonial esthetics and politics "to confront conventionalized regimes of representation and to engender Indigenous sovereignty." Here, Truscello and Watchman argue that director Jeff Barnaby imagines an Indigenous futurity beyond the racist settler imposition of the blood quantum regime by using a specifically Indigenous esthetic, a cinematic exemplar of the Fourth Eye.