The longer one is alive, the more one learns about history, the more timeline events feel like traveling in a circle, rather than in a flat line. Communities build up, empires rise, blights come, and, eventually, the empires fall. The blight can take the form of something organic, like a virus or plague, or a matter of human intervention, such as greed or pride. It’s with this in mind that R.T. Thorne’s feature-film directorial debut, 40 Acres, co-written with first-time screenwriter Glenn Taylor with the story developed by Thorne and Lora Campbell (Yoga 101), anchors its tale of familial strife and global terror as the world teeters on the brink. Screening during The Overlook Film Festival 2025, audiences may presume 40 Acres to be a straight-forward horror-thriller in a few vs. many conflict, but there’s a rawness and layered meaning to everything within the film, catching the audience in the very razor wire that surrounds the central family until the credits roll, not even realizing how deeply the metaphor has cut them.
Danielle Deadwyler as Hailey Freeman in 40 ACRES. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
In some unknown future, after all the animals died and civil wars broke out across the globe, those who remain fight to survive, either by banding together or staying alone. For Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler), it means protecting her family’s land in Canada alongside her husband, Galen (Michael Greyeyes), and their four children. They all work together to sow the acreage and fight off bandits, keeping them safe and fed, but, as eldest child Emanuel (Kataem O’Connor) grows older, the monotony and solitude of this life grows more confining. With an unknown threat rising in the area, Hailey is inclined to close ranks, yet Emanuel sees it as an opportunity to change the fate of the farm, resulting in a divided focus that may put all their lives at risk.
L-R: Danielle Deadwyler as Hailey Freeman, Michael Greyeyes as Galen, Kataem O’Connor as Emanuel, Haile Amare as Cookie, and Jaeda LeBlanc as Danis in 40 ACRES. Photo courtesy of Hungry Eyes Media.
The first image of the film sets an incredible tone for all that follows within 40 Acres as, post-text explanation of the world, Thorne points the camera down a ring of razor wire resting atop a fence. An endless metallic circle meant to rend flesh and cut bone, cold and heartless, uninterested in whether it keeps people out or in. For the Freemans, the fence is a stop-gap, a protective measure to keep people out of their fields, as well as to delay possible interlopers, but that razor wire bears with it a heavy significance, especially in conjunction with the title of the film and its historical relevance — the promise of freed American slaves post-Civil War for 40 acres and a mule, a symbol of personal and economic freedom, that was, of course, unfulfilled. The razor wire, one of the same methods used to keep slaves in, the Freemans now use to keep interlopers out. The symbolism is potent here, and it’s not the only aspect that, given any kind of intellectual scrutiny, makes one shudder. The largest, of which, is the presentation of the Freemans (amid the glimpses of the recent past) compared to those whose shadows appear on the horizon, their threat growing deeper each day. Specifically, and smartly, after we observe the razor wire, Thorne and Campbell present a small collection of marauders walking onto the property, using them as a most striking introduction to the Freeman family. The violence by which these marauders are dispatched tells the audience a great deal about the Freemans, but that’s not what hits the hardest. It’s the realization that the Freemans are a collection of Black and Cree individuals who are fighting off, what appear to be, white individuals. This is a world in which those who know how to cultivate the earth (the Freemans) can survive and those who don’t (the marauders) can’t, a striking commentary on the actual past and present where Indigenous and Black communities had knowledge and experience to work the land and both suffering at the hands of the white community through residential schools, slavery, and more. Thus, 40 Acres takes on a politically-charged view as the historical oppressors seek to, once more, take the land for their own benefit from those who willingly do the work every day, given time to rest only “when dead.” This view is not an aspect that the characters overtly explore. In fact, to the credit of the script and performers, race isn’t addressed except once, and when it is addressed, it’s a beautiful tension-killer. Rather, this subtext of race, like that first image of the razor wire, is placed before us from the start, its meaningfulness allowed to seep deeply into the subconscious of the viewing audience so that we do the heavy-lifting. At least, those of us who notice.
Speaking of noticeable things, Jeremy Benning’s cinematography (The Expanse) does a beautiful job assisting the performers in setting each scene of the film. During daylight sequences, the colors oscillate between a light, faded look for the farm, as characters work the fields and a more healthy, natural hue; even the blue of the sky is given a softer, less healthy blue. During nighttime sequences, the same fading isn’t applied, helping to convey the warmth of the home despite the unease right outside their front door. Assisting in the interpersonal turmoil that spreads on the Freeman farm between mother and son, when Emanuel is shown going on depot runs, there’s a shift in the vibrancy of the woods he rides through and the river he pauses to swim in, looking as though the blight didn’t impact this area. This aids Emanuel’s growing sense of desired escape from the constriction he feels on the farm (with a certain amount of young adult biochemistry coming into play, wanting to meet women he’s not related to). Most impressively, though Benning seems to rely on natural lighting for several nighttime outdoor sequences, there’s never a sense of obscurity with what the characters are doing or where the audience should be looking. Spaces are lit so that the reality of the characters holds while we can still see what’s going on, thereby keeping tension high and the audience on the edge of their seats. This is a difficult line to walk, but, as combat takes a greater hold on the narrative, the confinement of vision perception through natural obfuscation only increases the sense that no one is safe regardless of narrative focal point.
Danielle Deadwyler as Hailey Freeman in 40 ACRES. Photo courtesy of The Overlook Film Festival.
One cannot write about 40 Acres without talking about the cast. Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson; The Harder They Fall) is as brilliant as ever, conveying the perpetual cost of maternal responsibility as she makes Hailey seem hard-nosed, indomitable, and resilient in her desire to maintain the land of her family while preserving her future. Any parent who watches the film will recognize the sacrifices Hailey makes in the circumstance, forgoing a great deal of softness amid the perpetual threats from either starvation (if crops aren’t maintained) or attack (marauders). Deadwyler also makes the constant distrust Hailey seems to possess something one can relate to, even if we also come to understand Emanuel’s perspective of opening things up to others because it’s the distrust, the keeping folks at arms-length, that keeps the farm a sanctuary for all she loves. O’Connor (Time Cut) manages to keep up with Deadwyler, despite the two never having what one presumes the narrative will provide in a face-off; instead, O’Connor makes the frustrated (and horny) Emanuel relatable as a warrior, a burgeoning leader, and a son, his perspective being just as vital, even if his methods are antithetical to Hailey’s, making the path of the narrative familiar until it’s not. Where the script follows the well-worn path and then deviates, Deadwyler and O’Connor positively shine. Of course, their roles become more fleshed out with the inclusion of the remaining Freeman family, and both Greyeyes (Firestarter (2022); Blood Quantum) and Leenah Robinson’s (1923) Raine take up the MVP roles. Each of them is center to some of the best interpersonal moments that help the Freemans feel like a complete and natural family, as well as organic in the action. To mention more about the latter would spoil the shockingly impressive work of stunt coordinator Angelica Lisk-Hann (Accused; Robin Hood), but, needless to say, their work should be talked about this year in any upcoming discussion of stunts.
Director/co-writer R.T. Thorne on the set of 40 ACRES. Photo courtesy of Mongrel Media.
If audiences so desire, they can experience 40 Acres as a simple family-centric horror thriller. It can absolutely be taken in that way and enjoyed. However, those who are open to what Thorne, Taylor, Campbell, and the cast/crew have created will find themselves going down a rabbit hole of ideas in which nearly everything we see and hear possesses intention. With intention comes a great deal of power and meaning, all of which can serve as a warning for what appears to be happening once more: supply chains are failing due to animal-based viruses, greed and pride are leading the way in political arenas in which the call for isolation at home and war elsewhere is a path made of distrust and vanity, and those who just want to exist are left with anxiety which breeds fear. There are elements of 40 Acres that are decidedly science fiction, but they are more akin to science non-fiction the more we roll the narrative, its themes, and its execution around in our minds: society is stronger together; fear drives us apart.
Screened during The Overlook Film Festival 2025.
In theaters July 2nd, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Magnolia Pictures 40 Acres website.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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