Blood Equity

In the rust-belt town of Millbrook, retired factory worker Ezra Thorne—denied disability benefits for a crumbling spine—lives alone in a fortress of neglect. When two desperate junkies break in, Ezra does not call the police. Instead, he weaponizes his household: a nail gun, a floor sander, a vat of pickling brine, and the very stairlift the Social Security Administration deemed "non-essential." What unfolds is a trap not for thieves, but for a system that commodifies pity while withholding justice. A bloody meditation on institutional cruelty and the savage arithmetic of survival.