James Lee Burke’s 1992 short story “Winter Light,” which appears in his 2007 collection, Jesus Out to Sea, tells a rather brief and straightforward tale of revenge that wouldn’t seem to be adequate fodder for a full-length film treatment. Indeed, director Julian Higgins first adapted this material as a short film in 2015, which received a number of film-festival honors and was on the shortlist to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Live Action Short Film. Higgins revisits this story as the director of a new movie, God’s Country, which stars Thandiwe Newton and premieres in theaters on Sept. 16.

In the original tale, Roger Guidry, a 58-year-old divorced and retired college professor, lives with his beloved dog on land that he owns, adjacent to national forest land somewhere in the rural West. He frequently asks trespassing hunters not to go through his property to get to the woods; he despises hunting and doesn’t want to do anything to encourage it. One day, he explains this to a pair of hunters who are unpleasant but grudgingly comply; the next morning, he finds one of the hunters’ crossbow bolts on his property—a clear threat. Later, he sees the pair cross through his neighbors’ property to get to the forest, where they kill several grouse. Roger decides to block the only access road with a sturdy chain, but the hunters find a way around it; this time, they leave the woods with a dead doe, which enrages him: “For some reason, that afternoon, for the first time in his life, he wondered what it would be like to kill someone.” When the hunters go on to commit a horrendous crime, Roger finds himself at a moral crossroads, leading to an ambiguous ending.

The tale also takes a few side roads into Roger’s past academic career, which he left behind because he loathed his department head, Waldo, who was also a hunter. Roger also has a brief encounter with Gretchen, Waldo’s young teaching assistant, who tells him about an incident in which Waldo asked her to rub his bare shoulders with Ben-Gay while “saying I was a good girl…over and over.”

Guidry’s reaction to Waldo's vile behavior is just one of several changes in the new film adaptation, which Higgins co-wrote with The Chi’s Shaye Ogbonna. It stars Newton as Sandra Guidry, who’s somewhat younger than Roger and a woman of color. (Roger’s skin is described at the story’s climax as “white and shining with sweat in the moon’s glow.”) Sandra is also a professor, but she isn’t retired; we see her in meetings with her fellow academics, including the department head, whom she still dislikes. She’s also a transplant from New Orleans with a traumatic backstory involving Hurricane Katrina.

The reframing of this role leads to a number of intriguing digressions from Burke’s story. For example, Roger tells Gretchen to “forget about” what happened with Waldo, and to report it to the dean only if Waldo “makes another overture.” (Roger also distastefully takes Gretchen in his arms after hearing her story and feels a “thickness in his loins” as she weeps in his embrace.) Sandra, in the film, wants to report Waldo immediately and is only dissuaded from doing so because it’s not what Gretchen wants.

There’s also a subplot about the hiring of a new professor, in which Gretchen and one other instructor ask the department head (renamed Arthur) to consider a person of color for the position. Later, Arthur complains of “quotas”—a common buzzword in racist arguments—and points out that, after all, he already hired Sandra. It’s far more powerful than the original story, in which Roger merely expresses annoyance that Waldo only recommends weak candidates he can control.

A few other differences are of interest, as well; Sandra, who’s an ex-cop herself, immediately calls the local sheriff when she finds the aforementioned crossbow bolt. But there’s little the sheriff can do in an area in which a single cop must police hundreds of square miles. The movie makes clear that it takes place in the Wild West, in effect, which makes it more plausible when Sandra takes things into her own hands—and that the two hunters feel free to threaten her so openly.

Newton does a wonderful job as Sandra, radiating strength even during terrifying moments, and Yellowstone’s Jefferson White, as one of the hunters, is truly frightening in his handful of scenes. Higgins does a fine job as director, delivering consistent tension despite a leisurely pace. The movie’s ending, which is new to this adaptation, is undeniably intense—but like the original story, it feels curiously unresolved, with a major character seemingly resigned to a grim fate. They say that revenge is a dish that’s best served cold—and this one is chilly, indeed.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.