Slash and Burn

Here's another from the public library: Slash/Back (2022). A very cool Inuit indie from the Canadian province of Nunavut.

It is set in a small isolated village in the Arctic. The stars are four teen women, and a pre-teen girl who wants to tag along. We meet Maika, Tasiana Shirley, swindling the girl out of her $15 life savings. When Nalajoss Ellsworth notices this, she and the rest of the crew chase her down on their bikes and make her give it back. Shirley is a young beauty, discontented with life in the isolated North, and all the Inuit crap. She's also ashamed of her hunter/fisher father, although she loves him as well. Ellsworth is a little tough, with cornrows and face paint. She's interested in the old stories, the old ways. The other girls are Alexis Wolfe, the fat, funny friend (not really fat, but pretty funny). and Chelsea Prusky, who looks a bit Anglo, and has parents who take her to Winnipeg every year. 

A lot of this movie is just a hangout with these kids. All are young first-time actors (I think), but play their parts very convincingly. Out of boredom, they borrow Shirley's dad's boat and hunting rifle, and head out to explore. While fooling around, they spot a polar bear acting strange - like, with tentacles coming out of its mouth and eyes. It takes some doing, but they manage to kill it. 

Strangely, the rest of the movie isn't about them trying to convince the community of the danger. Basically, they just try to forget it. There's time here for a sub-plot about the cutest guy in the village - Wolfe likes him, but gets tongue-tied. He likes Shirley, but she can only put him down, maybe out of loyalty to Wolfe. 

But Ellsworth is too much of a hunter and a warrior to let this whole thing go. She sets out to confront the beast or beasts, and kills an infected ermine that attacks her. Perhaps this was the young of the other monsters? Anyway, now they are angry.

As far as the horror goes, this is not that extreme. The special effects budget keeps the monsters to a minimum, and the children are menaced but never harmed too badly. Only adults are killed - and the loss of the dumb Anglo cop isn't much of a tragedy. The gore is mostly black monster blood, not red human.

The village this is set in is real, Pangnirtung. It's a hotbed of native arts and culture, which Shirley is rebelling against, but other kids take pride in. The soundtrack includes a bit of Tanya Tagaq, who sings in a mesmerising breathy Inuit style. This would be a fun movie without the Attack the Block monster plot. But it's great with it. I don't know if any of these actors, or director Nyla Innuksuk will have a mainstream breakthrough, but I'm glad we got this,