Hulu’s Blood & Myth Revisits an Alaskan True Crime Case Steeped in Indigenous Lore
The documentary examines the 2012 shooting by Iñupiat actor Teddy Kyle Smith, who said he was possessed by ‘little people’ when he shot two brothers; it includes Smith’s first on-camera interview since his arrest.
A new Hulu documentary, Blood & Myth, examines an unusual Alaska true-crime case in which Iñupiat actor Teddy Kyle Smith says he was possessed by so-called “little people” when he shot two brothers in 2012. The brothers, Paul and Charles Buckel, survived the attack. Smith is serving a 99-year prison sentence after a jury in 2014 found him guilty of first-degree attempted murder.
Smith, best known for his role in the 2011 Sundance film On the Ice, carried out the shootings in a cabin near the Squirrel River, roughly 40 miles from the northern Alaska city of Kiana. Authorities say the incident occurred while Smith was on the run following the death of his mother; police were unable to determine a cause of death and found no evidence of foul play, but Smith later told investigators he feared he would be viewed as a suspect because he had been in the house with her when she died.
Blood & Myth, which premiered on Hulu on Sept. 4, features the first on-camera interview with Smith since his arrest. In that prison interview, he describes believing that iñukuns, beings some Iñupiat say inhabit the Alaskan tundra and may possess supernatural powers, had sent the men. The documentary places Smith’s account alongside the surviving victims’ experience and reporting on the investigation and trial.
Legal records show Smith was charged and tried after the shooting; a jury returned a guilty verdict in 2014 for first-degree attempted murder. Prosecutors argued the shooting was deliberate. Smith’s defense in the case included his claims about the iñukuns and his state of mind following his mother’s death, matters that jurors ultimately weighed in reaching the verdict.
The film situates the case at the intersection of Indigenous belief systems and the U.S. criminal justice process. It probes how local lore informed Smith’s account of events and how that account was received by investigators, witnesses and jurors. The documentary also revisits the 2012 shooting site and the surrounding region to explore the cultural and geographic context of the events.
Coverage of the case has drawn attention for the way it blends a conventional true-crime narrative with accounts of Iñupiat spiritual belief. The Buckel brothers’ survival and testimony, Smith’s film work prior to the shootings, and the unresolved questions surrounding his mother’s death are all central elements the documentary revisits.
Blood & Myth does not introduce new criminal charges; rather, it aims to document and contextualize a case that has provoked debate about culture, belief and responsibility. The film’s release adds to ongoing conversations about how storytellers and the legal system engage with Indigenous traditions when those traditions emerge in criminal cases.