Tales from the Rez: New horror-humour anthology series from director Trevor Solway mines Blackfoot ghost stories

Tales from the Rez was created and shot in and around Siksika Nation, in southern Alberta. (Photo: Nicola Pender PR)

Just in time for Halloween thrills and chills, Tales from the Rez has arrived on screens telling scary stories that might ring a bell for anyone who grew up in Siksika.

That's where the show's creator, Trevor Solway, grew up and still lives and works. Five years ago, Solway and producer Colin Van Loon hatched a pitch for an anthology series that blended the Blackfoot ghost stories he learned from his grandparents and aunts and uncles growing up in Siksika.

"It was born out of The Napi Collective, this film collective I run in Siksika, where I develop young filmmakers," Solway said.

"When I was a kid growing up, I loved films like Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark and Tales from the Crypt," Solway said, "and I just remember being glued to my grandma's TV and all my cousins, we'd stay up late watching these shows and then in that same time frame, we could go visit our grandparents or uncles or aunts and eavesdrop at the kitchen table and hear them talking about ghost stories that happened around the community.

"We'd kind of hear the gossip I guess – so I was just marrying those two things: the already-established horror anthology genre and native spirituality and superstition."

Armed with an idea and a short proof of concept, Solway and Van Loon pitched the idea of a horror-humour anthology set in Siksika at ImagineNATIVE, the world's largest Indigenous film festival, which is currently on in Toronto (where Van Loon and Solway debuted the show at a Friday screening).

Producer Van Loon said they didn't win, but the more they talked about it, the more energized they became.

"Pitching live is really nerve-wracking, but the flip side of the coin is that it was really fuel for us. Even though we didn't win – if there was Mr. or Mrs. Congeniality, we would have got that prize – we got a boost from the audience and it gave us the fuel to keep developing the project," Van Loon said.

The pandemic turned into a fertile period of developing a more in-depth vision of what the show, which is framed by narrator Uncle Randolph, who introduces each story and bookends it, might look and feel like.

Eventually, Indigenous Screen Fund provided the duo with a small development grant, and then APTN put out a call for web series ideas.

When it read Tales from the Rez, it licensed six episodes. (And just ordered a second season for APTN lumi, its streaming service.)

"All the shows are separate, but I like when they watch all six together, because all the characters' journeys continue on in other episodes," Solway said. "Or, like the Halloween episode, there's an event that kind of triggers some circumstances or events, so like they carry on in different episodes and a prop will be seen throughout –to kind of build that cinematic universe of Blackfoot horror – and it's cool.

"They all have a similar look (too)," he adds. "It's a call back to 80s, 90s horror with these slashes of red light and yellows. We got really creative with the way we lit it with our camera team and our DP and just creating that continuity throughout all of them was really important."

The series features an all-star cast of Indigenous actors and was shot on Siksika and in surrounding communities using an Indigenous crew.

"We really feel lucky that the Alberta area has so many really great Indigenous actors, really great talent," Van Loon, who started out directing music videos by people like The Snotty Nosed Rez Kids, said. "I think half of the Indigenous actors you see in big Hollywood films, they come from Alberta so we felt really blessed that those people could come and support the project as well."

Solway who studied journalism at Mount Royal University and then independent Indigenous digital filmmaking (with classmate Van Loon) at Capilano University in Vancouver, is building a growing film community of young Indigenous filmmakers in Siksika.

And with Tales from the Rez, he's doing something else: giving Blackfoot culture and stories a popular culture close-up.

"That's what really cool about introducing Blackfoot identity and language and people into this genre of horror," Solway says. "So young native kids -- young Blackfoot kids -- can watch our show.

"It's really cool, and exciting, to see themselves and their language in it – in the fabric of the stories – and stories they probably heard growing up from their grandparents.

"And we mix in a little bit of Blackfoot language throughout so I think it's gonna instill a lot of pride," he adds.

"When I was growing up, it wasn't cool to be Blackfoot and we were often made fun of for our accent and the way we dressed," he said. "Now, I've kind of – I guess I've made it cool!

"I do all these things for little Trev, you know?" he adds. "I never forget the little rez kids."