Escanaba in da Moonlight 2001

Reuben Soady Jeff Daniels heads to the hunting camp cottage, commonly called deer camp, with his father Harve Presnell as Albert Soady, his brother Joey Albright as Remnar Soady, and Wayne David Parker as Jimmy “The Jimmer” Negamanee from Menominee.

If Reuben, now 43, doesn’t manage to shoot a buck by the end of the season, he will become the oldest Soady in recorded history not to have achieved this task, a taboo that leads people in the community to believe he is jinxed.

Reuben breaks with tradition, taking advice from his Native American wife Wolf Moon Dance Soady Kimberly Guerrero, who offers him spiritual remedies involving a drink made with moose testicles and scenting himself with porcupine urine to protect him from evil spirits and attract his prey to him.

After various unexplainable phenomena, they meet a DNR officer, Tom T. Treado Randall Godwin, who claims to have literally seen God on the ridge.

At various times, Reuben, Jimmer, and ranger Tom all get possessed by spirits, heightening the sense of mystery and the idea that unseen forces linger around the camp and its terrain.

Eventually, Reuben runs out into the cold wearing only his long underwear and a hat, and finds himself face-to-face with the ghost of his dead great-grandfather Alphonse Soady, who guides him to shooting a buck sent for him by the spirits. Reuben returns triumphantly.

The memory of family, tradition, and the land is echoed in brief flashbacks that bring younger versions of the Soady clan into view: Young Reuben Alex Mulvaney, Young Remnar Kyle Broeders, and Young Wolf Moon Dance Soady Belinda ‘Allee’ Eagle.