Slash/Back (Nyla Innuksuk, 2022)
Kids versus aliens
Sometimes, you just want a joyful movie experience; a film that’s not only an entertaining escape to watch, but one where it’s also obvious the people who made it had a lot of fun doing so.
Slash/Back is such a creature.
Set in a remote village just 31 miles south of the Arctic Circle, the film centers on a group of teenage girls with little to do in their mostly-Inuit community that’s isolated from the rest of the world. They grew up learning the traditions of their people (myths, hunting) that have been passed down for generations, yet they’re very much contemporary teenagers who spend most of their time scrolling on Instagram, competing for boys, and dreaming of someday traveling to such exotic destinations as Winnipeg.
But as countless horror movies have taught us before, whenever final girls wish for more excitement in their lives, they usually end up being force-fed far more than they can chew. In this case, our protagonists are faced with an apparent alien invasion — and it’s up to them alone to save their small town, and the world.
The otherworldly beasts on this occasion are tentacled shapeshifters that imitate earthlings by wearing their skin. The first time the girls encounter one it’s disguised as a polar bear, but as their threat grows and the aliens zero in on their little community, the aliens possess adult humans and wear their skins like rubber masks reminiscent of the “Bug” alien-man of Men In Black.
It’s kind of like The Thing but, you know, for kids.
Yes, Slash/Back is a PG horror flick, but it’s one that could fairly be compared to those produced by Amblin in its heyday. (Sometimes acutely: an early sequence following our gang of protagonists as they ride their bikes across town can’t help but remind you of E.T.’s cycle-centric climax.)
It’s a gateway horror movie I’d feel comfortable showing to my pre-teen, just as I’d encourage them to devour Goosebump books like I did as a kid.
But even putting it like that feels like a disservice. This is a good movie, and its quality is evident throughout. It may be tween-friendly, but there’s more to it than that…
It feels genuine. And it is. Writer-(with Ryan Cavan)-slash-director Innuksuk herself is Indigenous, and the film was shot entirely on location in the isolated hamlet of Pangnirtung, Nunavut. And the authenticity lends so much to the film’s success.
Take a bunch of phone-addicted Gen Zers battling aliens in the suburbs of middle-America, and we all feel like we’ve seen it before. But locate it in a specific time, place, and culture, and there is so much rich depth to it, it feels so much more substantial.
One conspicuous detail about the film, for example, is that it takes place entirely in daylight. Even though part of the story involves all the adults in town going off to a dance to get drunk, the sun still shines brightly. The reason for this, of course, is the setting is so far north the sun doesn’t set in the summer for days. No-one in the film remarks on the phenomenon because it’s what they’re accustomed to. It’s their reality. But we, the audience, notice. And it’s things like that that make the film feel real and lived in.
I personally love films that allow me to feel like I’m experiencing a different culture, a different part of the world, and Slash/Back certainly achieves that. And then to give me a film that not only satisfies my wanderlust but layer a monster story on top of it? *Chef’s kiss*