 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: Don’t Say Its Name • Year: 2021 • Country: Canada • Director: Rueben Martell • Main cast: Sera-Lys McArthur, Madison Walsh, Julian Black Antelope • Runtime: 84 minutes • Production company: Chaos, a Film Company • (Not available yet) |
Don’t Say Its Name (2021) is a horror-thriller with a supernatural touch set in a Canadian Indian reservation where an ancient spirit is awakened when a mining company starts to profane the land. And it works well.
Rueben Martell debuts as a co-writer and director of a feature film and delivers an engaging exercise closer to the detective thriller than to a ghost story, which is to appreciate. It might not be a fresh and innovative horror thriller, but it is effective and delivers an entertaining close to an hour and a half.
A movie of those sorts, filmed in the nowed forest of arid winter Canada, has already the positive handicap of the benefits of the delightful landscapes, although here they are not playing such a strong part as they did in Wind River (2017), to name a recent one. Most of the cast are Native Americans, people who have a stronger attachment to the land more than some other cultures do (especially talking about America), and a very rich spiritual and mystic background. So despite the female detective played by Madison Walsh starts off searching for a regular male sexual predator, with or without the racial component, she is open for the supernatural and soon gets on the right trail.
Don’t Say Its Name (2021) is well acted, well written, well filmed, and well directed. It is an enjoyable piece, following the rules of classic horror-thriller, without many surprises but without big flaws. The movie premiers worldwide this week at the Fantasia Film Festival, which is the perfect scenario for a film of these characteristics. It won’t be the most memorable movie of the year, but it sure is an entertaining watch.
RATE: 6/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt11589366
