The Moogai | Dir: Jon Bell | M | ★ ★ ★ ★
Based on his award-winning short of the same name, writer-director Jon Bell’s striking feature debut, a frightening horror steeped in the trauma of the Stolen Generations, was a recent prize winner at this year’s Cinefest OZ.
The film starts in 1970 when Aboriginal children knew to run and hide when men in suits turned up. On one occasion, Ruth’s sister runs into a cave to escape the men who want to take her away, and is never seen again.
Except that a heavily pregnant Indigenous lawyer Sarah (Shari Sebbens) sees the young girl with white eyes, warning her that a monster will come and take her baby. This nearly happens when Sarah and her newborn almost lose their lives.
Adopted by a White family at birth, Sarah resents that her biological mother Ruth (Tessa Rose) is intruding into her life with traditional Aboriginal medicine to ward off the malevolent spirit.
There are several levels of horror in the film. The first is the echo of what the children and the mothers must have suffered when they were separated, something that Sebbens brings to life when her baby goes missing.
Then there is the way Sarah and her carpenter husband Fergus (Meyne Wyatt) are still treated by authorities. Fergus doesn’t want to be seen as “just another angry Black man” when the hysterical Sarah is seen as not being capable of looking after their baby and six year old daughter Chloe (Jahdeana Mary).
These are probably more horrific than the familiar techniques used to create suspense and bring the ghoulish monster to life, as Sarah is pushed into a place where she loses all control over her life.
Writer/director has said “The Stolen Generation is such a massive wound in the psyche of Australia, but it is often thought of as something in the past. And it’s often presented as something in the past. This story takes the inheritance of that trauma into the present, with a couple’s new baby. Someone or something is trying to take that new born baby, to destroy the sacred human bond of mother and child.”
“We’ve really tried to delve into the horrors of breaking that sacred human bond and explore the effects of transgenerational trauma that still echo through to our lives today. To find a cinematic way to show the terror of having something hunt you down so it can take your child and your future.”
Lezly Herbert
