Rhymes for Young Ghouls

As a history lesson about Canada's unjust treatment of Native Americans, it's often eye-opening, but as storytelling it's clunky and highly familiar, and the period re-creation is seldom convincing.

Writer-director Barnaby weaves a surprising amount of tenderness into the fabric of violence, as well as a good measure of magic realism, to keep the gritty story engaging.

Barnaby puts a mythic frame around a grim history, shaping it in a way that feels always like a creative adventure, not a duty.

Rhymes for Young Ghouls is incredibly political and confrontational; [the] genre elements help make them accessible for audiences, [it] is a passionate defense of Indigenous rights and, more importantly, a call to arms against white Canadian settlers.