The Moogai is a new Australia psychological horror film from Wiradjuri and Bundjalung Director, Writer and Actor, Jon Bell.
The film opens in 1970, with children playing at the fictitious Red River Aborigines Mission, when a government car arrives with two workers who’ve come to forcibly take the children from their parents.
Sisters, Ruth and Agnes flee into the bush, with Agnes hiding in a cave, and it’s here that we meet The Moogai.
Jon says the backbone of the story, which centres on the Stolen Generation, was inspired by a real life experience.
“It mostly came about because after my wife and I had done some time working with Docs (formerly the NSW Department of Community Services. now the Department of Communities and Justice), restoring families, putting families back together. When our grandkids were born, we were a bit worried about certain points of view, or certain judgment calls being made on the kids, and they ended up in the system. So that was kind of the beginning of it.”
The film then moves from 1970 to present day, and follows young Aboriginal couple, Sarah (Shari Sebbens) and Fergus (Meyne Wyatt) who’ve just had their second baby, Jacob.
But what should be a time of excitement, turns to fear as Sarah starts seeing a malevolent spirit, and a child with white eyes who keeps warning her of what’s coming.
Sarah wonders if there is indeed a child stealing spirit or Moogai coming for her new baby or if she’s the threat.
Jon says he drew on a number of influences for the film.
“It all comes from these sort of 80s films, in a lot of ways, that had these unstoppable killers, or unstoppable force of nature type monsters. I’m talking about the Xenomorph in Alien, Michael Myers, or Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, those kinds of supernatural forces. They’re the kinds of things that give the character something to go up against, like, if you’ve got a strong monster, then you’ve got your halfway through a strong story.”
The Moogai is Jon’s debut feature film and has been adapted from a 2020 short which one a bunch of awards.
He says there’s a lot on offer for the audience, but he hopes they walk away feeling something after seeing The Moogai.
“There’s scares, tension, and moments where you go, ‘Oh, your heart stops’. But there’s also laughs. There’s those moments, or certainly this one character, every family’s got one, and everyone knows what I’m talking about when I say that, There’s these lighter moments in there too. It’s not all dread and in the end, it’s about love. That’s what all films, I think, on some level or another are about, like this human need to connect.
If people go away with feeling like they’ve been entertained, that’s great. But if they go away and there’s something they’re thinking about, or they think about later (on), then that’s great, too.”
The Moogai opens nationally on Halloween, Thursday 31st October.
Looking to watch similar films like The Moogai? Here are some other Indigenous films (and a tv series) you might like.
Slash/Back (2022) – A sci-fi film set in Nunavut about four girls who have to use their horror film knowledge to battle a shapeshifting alien. The best zombie polar bear ever!
SGaawaay K’uuna (2018) is the first feature film in the Haida Gwaii language. This is a mystery/thriller which tells the story of a man who becomes a Gaagiid/Gaagiixiid, or “the Wildman” after a tragic incident.
Firebite (2021) is an eight episode series set in Coober Pedy which makes so much sense for where Australian vampires would live. It follows two Aboriginal hunters as they battle the last colony of vampires in the South Australian desert.
Blood Quantum (2019) is the last film from visionary Mi’gmaq filmmaker, Jeff Barnaby who passed away in 2022. The Indigenous people of the isolated Mi’gmaq reserve of Red Crow are immune from a zombie plague and must battle the non-Indigenous undead. Everything you wanted and didn’t know you needed in a zombie film. Equally Barnaby’s earlier films, The Colony (short, 2007) and Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013) are also worth a watch.
