Back in 2020, director Jon Bell presented his short film “The Moogai” at MIFF where the response was bigger and better than he could have hoped for as the film took out the Best Australian Short Film Award at the festival. This award gave Bell's film exposure, which led to it receiving the Grand Jury Award one year later, this time at the SXSW Film Festival. Four years on from the short's premiere and Bell has returned to the scene of his original triumph, with his new feature length expansion of “The Moogai”, a horror film steeped in symbolism about the horrors of the Stolen Generation which took place in Australia between 1910-70.
Being a brand new Australian horror film, especially one about such an important part of our country's history (despite how shameful it is), I really, really wanted to love “The Moogai” but unfortunately I found it to be very middling. That is not to say that there was nothing good about the film, there certainly is, but it could have been so much better. Unfortunately I have not seen the original short film so I am unable to compare the two or talk about where the story has been expanded upon, but I felt that “The Moogai” was really at its best when it was working as an allegory or allusion to the Stolen Generation; this was when the film was at its most chilling and powerful. However, as a horror film that is also intended to be scary while having something to say, unfortunately this is where “The Moogai” really struggles to separate itself from an already overcrowded genre to announce itself as something special. Rather it comes across as bland and very generic.
The biggest problem of “The Moogai” (for me, at least) is the character of Sarah, who is just insufferable right from the opening second of the film. She is an exhausting character to be around, with her constant whinging and negative outlook on everything. I understand that she is going through a hard time after the premature birth of her second child, and she is exhausted, but even before the birth Sarah had this self-obsessed world view that rubbed me the wrong way. I also wasn't convinced by Shari Sebbens's performance in the role either; it was far too broad and over the top for my liking. Sebben's actually reprises her role from the short, as does Meyne Wyatt who plays her husband Fergus. Wyatt is much more believable in his role as both worried father and worried husband, however his character sadly disappears in the final act of “The Moogai” leaving the women of the story to fight against the monster terrorising them all.
Another issue I had with the film was that a lot of the story beats just didn't work, as in Bell would set up scenarios and then do nothing with them, or else when he finally would follow through on something, it would be completely undone in the very next scene, destroying all the tension of the film. The worst example of this is when the Moogai finally steals the baby from Sarah and takes it back to its cave. The very next scene, Sarah's birth mother Ruth says to not panic and that she knows where the Moogai has taken the baby. The two of them then enter the cave and find the baby unguarded lying on the ground, where Ruth says “don't worry, the Moogai is sleeping” and they pick him up and take him back without a fight. Um,....what? This demonic entity has been trying to get this baby all film, he finally does but then decides to have a nap straight after???? That doesn't cut it for me, I'm sorry; that is very poor writing! It makes no sense! As for the look of the Moogai himself, I wasn't really a fan of that either. For the most part, he keeps to the shadows, and we see very little of him, but for the big finale he steps out of the darkness and we witness that the demon actually has two faces; one on top of his head, so he can look at you when he is crawling on his hands and knees, and then his real face below it. It is a good idea, but the face on top of the head is just so goofy looking that his victims would die from laughter before dying from fear. I think if they got this face looking nastier or scarier, it would be an excellent creature, but I wasn't a fan. The Moogai's long arms are creepy, but is something of a cliché now in horror. I am not blind to the symbolism attached to the design of the creature (being “two faced” with long arms “of the law”; reflections of the government's involvement of the Stolen Generation) and I think the idea is a great one, but the execution itself needed work.
“The Moogai” is a stunningly beautiful film, with Sean Ryan's gorgeous cinematography being the highlight of the film. Particularly the scenes set in the outback, Ryan is able to highlight the natural beauty of the area which to me, when I think about Australia it is this kind of terrain I picture as indicative of our wonderful country. I was less a fan of the look when the film takes place in suburbia, but when the characters go bush, I thought it looked amazing, particularly the brilliant pre-credits sequence that begins the film. Set in 1970, we watch two Aboriginal girls being chased by authorities in an attempt to separate them from their mother. It is a scene both chilling, and beautiful, and it is also the best scene in “The Moogai” which is kind of a problem if your film reaches its peak in its opening five minutes.
For me, “The Moogai” only works well in reference to the Stolen Generation, and what those poor women went through having their children forcibly removed from them. Director Jon Bell isn't subtle with his metaphors, but that doesn't make them any less powerful or chilling. In fact the scene that I thought was the most horrific and scary of the entire film is the one when Sarah suddenly wakes up to realise her daughter is no longer with her, and she bolts out of the house, running aimlessly through the bush land screaming and searching for her daughter. To me, this moment was absolutely chilling because you know that this exact scenario played out in reality to hundreds of Aboriginal mothers. The girl turns out to be fine, and sleep walking in the bush, but it was the one moment in the film that really had my heart racing. The other thing that I found tragic was just how hard it would have been for these birth mothers trying to re-enter the lives of their children after they had been stolen from them and brought up by white parents. As we see in “The Moogai”, Sarah wants little to do with Ruth, and does not consider her as her mother, staying close with the white parents who brought her up. You can imagine how painful this would have been in reality of these poor Aboriginal women essentially being pushed away by their children over something they had no control over.
Overall, I really wanted to love Jon Bell's “The Moogai” but outside of its metaphors and allegories to the Stolen Generation which were potent, I thought it was a poorly acted and written film, that was as generic as it comes in terms of being a horror film. While Sean Ryan's gorgeous outback cinematography was a highlight, sadly besides that there isn't a whole lot to recommend about “The Moogai”, which ended up being quite the disappointment simply for being so generic and dull.
2.5 Stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment