As Chris brains Jeremy with abocce ball, the deer’s head is prominent in the background of the shot. Wewould hypothesize that the deer is a reminder not only of his mother (viahis earlier experience with the dying doe), but also of his ancestors moregenerally. African rhythms begin to pulse as Chris takes down Jeremy, andas Chris’s eyes flick to the buck’s head, lyrics are whispered in Swahili, thesame as the opening credits, translating to “Something bad is coming, listento your ancestors, run.” Through this non-diegetic song, with its whisperedmessage from the ancestors, the deer effectively speaks. It then aids Chris inhis escape when the buck’s horns serve as a weapon to kill Dean Armitage

He is tied up in the game room, facingan old television set, above which is the taxidermied head of a large buck.Its appearance of life-in-death not only foreshadows Chris’s future state ifthe Armitages’ plot is carried off successfully, as a Black body occupied bywhite consciousness, but it also reverberates with characterizations of thehistorical devaluation of Black lives in Atlantic slavery, as socially deadnon-subjects

plainly legible as having a connection to his nefariousconquest of Black lives, which he considers unworthy of being lived

eacts in a strangely unsympathetic way. “Well, you know what I say?”he responds. “I say, one down, a couple hundred thousand to go. No, I don’tmean to get on my high horse, but I’m telling you, I do not like the deer.I’m sick of it. They’re taking over. They’re like rats. They’re destroying theecosystem. I see a dead deer on the side of the road, I think to myself, ‘That’sa start.’