THE MOOGAI

Australia, 2024, 86 minutes, Colour.

Shari Sebbens, Meyne Wyatt, Tessa Rose, Bella Heathcote, Clarence Ryan, Jahdeannnna Mary, Toby Leonard Moore.

Directed by Jon Bell.

In recent years, the Australian film industry has moving towards making horror films, responding to the popularity of the genre throughout the world.

At the opening of The Moogai, there is a statement about the Stolen Generation, the decades of the practice of government authorities taking young indigenous children from their mothers, settlling them with adopting white families. But, along with this Australian social background, the filmmakers introduce aboriginal themes, especially the story of The Moogai, a strange bogeyman character, in aboriginal lore who wants to kidnap and possess children.

The film was written and directed by Jon Bell, who contributed to the successful television series exploring aboriginal issues, Redfern Now and Cleverman.

It is over to the audience to make what they will of these two strands, and the interconnection between these two attempts at kidnapping and possessing aboriginal children.

The scene is set in 1970, a rather lyrical situation, a supervisor with a group of children happily playing, a focus on two sisters. And then the officials arrive to take away the children, the supervisor whistling, the children fleeing the two girls, rushing to a dark cave where one of the sisters is captured by the Moogai.

Then a 2024 story, not quite what we might have been expecting, an urban story, the central character, Sarah (Shari Stebbins, a strong screen presence), more than competent in her business world, offered promotion is. She is married to a genial husband, Fergus (Meyne Wyatt). They have a young daughter, Chloe, and she is pregnant.

When her young child is born, a particularly difficult birth, Sarah having a cardiac arrest, we see her white parents and her dependence on them. However, now present is Sarah’s birth mother, Ruth (Tessa Rose) who wants to protect her from the influence of the Moogai, has found her daughter, wants to make contact, but is rebuffed by Sarah, a strong scene where she refuses to have a smoking ceremony in her house because of fire alarms and legislation, Ruth painting her wall, trying to paint the baby to protect it from the Moogai. Sarah is a sophisticated, anti-superstition, urban businesswoman, seemingly quickly assimilated into the white population, not wanting to make her indigenous connections.

As expected, the film veers into the eerie atmosphere, Sarah and her tiredness, her dreams, hallucinations, even suspicious of Chloe, clinging and hugging her newborn baby. Visits to the doctor, visits from Ruth, her white mother trying to fix things at home – but, it is too much, Sarah going into institutional care but being rescued, fleeing the city.

There is an appropriate dramatic confrontation with the Moogai, extraordinary prosthetics to make the Moogai a kind of monstrous, rapacious creature. Ruth is there to support Sarah, Chloe and the baby, a circle of ritual fire, strange serpents, and a final violent climax.

Audiences might have liked the screenplay to take the narrative further. However, audiences may realise that this Moogai scenario is symbolic of the power that created the Stolen generation and that the issues are not yet fully resolved.

1. The title? Meaning? Tone? His being gradually visualised, the final confrontation, monstrous?
2. The introduction, the issue of the Stolen Generation, the opening in 1970, the young children playing, protected, the officials trying to catch them, the pursuit to the cave? The two girls, sisters, playing hands, into the cave, one taken by the monster, the other saved?
3. The paralleling of the Stolen Generation with the stealing of the children by The Moogai?
4. The atmosphere in 1970, the women protecting the children, the children playing, the whistle, fleeing, the men in ties and suits, pursuit?
5. 2024, Sarah, her marriage, focus and his work, devotion, Chloe, her age? Sarah pregnant? At the office, her promotion, praise, Becky and her support?
6. Ruth, her memories as a girl, the loss of her sister? Having to give up her baby, the adoptive parents and to Sarah considering them as mother and father? Her wariness about Ruth?
7. The pregnancy, the sudden birth, hospital, the cardiac arrest, her being brought back, and death experience? Her devotion to the baby? Care, careful?
8. Fergus going to work, later calling in his brother to help out, the two brothers? At home, Sarah beginning to have strange experiences, that Chloe had moved the baby, the appearance of the young girl, the white eyed children, her health, weakness, the increasing nightmares, suggestions of the Moogai, deterioration?
9. Ruth, coming from the country, Sarah not calling her ‘mother’, her parents, at the birth, her disdain of Ruth? Ruth’s later visits, wanting the ritual fire, Sarah objecting because of the fire code, the paint and her refusal to have the baby consume it? The paint on the wall, and her mother later trying to remove it?
10. Becky, the visit, the drinking, the possibility of a promotion, Sarah going to pick up Chloe from school, the previous visit, the conversation with the teacher, the background of the Catholic school, her own education, the teacher, the accusation of drinking, the physical confrontation, the police, Becky denying drinking and her later explanation to Sarah’s discussed, Fergus coming, home?
11. The visit to the doctor, the medication, to sleep, Sarah wary, not taking the tablets, the increasing hallucinations? Fergus, becoming desperate, the visit to the doctor, her being institutionalised, her fears fight back? Fergus, the change of heart, coming to rescue her, the drive, the service station, the encounter with the police, Fergus arrested, memories of past in prison?
12. Sarah, Chloe and the baby, the drive, fears, in the store, rushing out, into the bush, her mother finding her, the rituals, the Circle of Fire, the paint on the faces, to become invisible, the Moogai arriving, the threats, the visuals, confrontation with Ruth, her death? Sarah and her grief, acknowledging her mother? The confrontation with the Moogai, the fight, Chloe and the baby invisible, the physical attack, the snakes, the Moogai devoured?
13. (Audiences wanting more of the story, the development but the themes for indigenous Australians, stolen generation, traditions, urban change are still to be resolved?