There are certain looks and certain signifiers that are coded into how we understand different eras of history. Whether that’s neon lightning and synth-y beats for stories set during the 1980s or the washed out, burnished look that everyone uses for movies set during the Depression or World War II, audiences have an unconscious expectation for how things in the past are ‘supposed’ to look, and if you fuck with that, it can result in people being flummoxed, if not outright confused and angry (just look at the reception to Michael Mann’s Public Enemies).
Ted Geoghegan’s Mohawk, out today, March 2, 2018, on VOD/Digital HD and in select theaters, flies directly in the face of the mannered, prestigious aura that usually surrounds historical films, particularly those dealing with racial conflict and clashes between civilizations. Geoghegan takes subject matter that has previously been the province of Oscar-bait and Disney cartoons and attacks it through the frame of low-budget splatter, of a piece with his earlier work, the spunky, gore-tastic haunted house film We Are Still Here.
The results are decidedly mixed, as Geoghegan’s ambitions outrun both his budget and his script (co-written with Grady Hendrix [author of the acclaimed My Best Friend’s Exorcism]); but even with these shortcomings, Mohawk is a wild enough ride that genre fans will get more than enough bang for their buck.
Mohawk kicks off a couple years into the War of 1812, with the Mohawk tribe having declared their neutrality between the British and the American sides. Oak (Kaniehtiio Horn) and her lover Calvin Two Rivers (Justin Rain) are convinced that the tribe’s best option is to stand with the British, a view that has solidified as they have struck up a polyamorous relationship with a British soldier, Joshua (Eamon Farren, the creepy fucking Horne guy from Twin Peaks: The Return).
The rest of the tribe won’t budge, and so an angsty Calvin sneaks off and massacres a nearby militia in their sleep, believing this will force his people’s hand. Instead, the survivors of that attack come looking for the three lovers, and soon the forests of New York set the stage for a desperate chase and bloody mayhem.
Note the phrase “set the stage.” Not an accident. Mohawk is a much more sprawling film than Geoghegan’s last, and he and returning cinematographer Karim Hussain wring plenty of atmosphere out of the wind shifting the trees and the claustrophobic openness of the forest. But Mohawk often possesses a theatrical quality as well, with characters just appearing from out behind trees and jumping right into scenes.
That quality extends to the gore which, as one would expect if they are at all familiar with We Are Still Here, flows by the gallons. Yet it’s hard to be too unsettled by the bloodshed when the sound design is purposefully exaggerated to cartoonish extremes (amped up by a badass, hysterically period-inappropriate score by Wojciech Golczewski) and the prop-work is such that you are more likely to reach for a splatter-poncho, like you would if you were out to see Blue Man Group, than a vomit bucket.
But while the low budget garners some delightful returns, it also nags at the film in other areas. Oak’s make-up is evocative and instantly iconic, but her costume looks like something you would see at a Halloween party, a quality that the largely handheld, digital look of the film only serves to heighten.
For long stretches, Mohawk is possessed of such an energy that you are willing to look past these sort of budgetary shortcomings, but it really starts to drain on the film as it continues on. Without spoiling anything, suffice to say that Mohawk burns through story at a rather remarkable rate, and Geoghegan and Hendrix gleefully pivot from one genre to another with hardly a moment’s notice. While this is laudable, it results in Mohawk building to a climax that the filmmakers frankly do not have the resources available to properly realize, and this, coupled with some supernatural aspects that are wildly inconsistent in their depiction, leaves the fiery climax feeling limp.
While some elements are unclear, the script is wise enough to give each of the pursuing militia a distinct personality and look. There’s evangelical butcher Hezekiah Holt (Ezra Buzzington), his dipshit son Myles (Ian “Arseface” Colletti), twisted tracker Beal (Robert Longstreet), infrequently gentle giant Allsopp (Jon Huber), and, best of all, a cowardly conscript named Yancy, played by the always delightful Noah Segan.
Each member of this crew is a fun villain in their own way, particularly Segan, who plays Yancy at full-tilt-twitch while dressed in what can only be described as a full-bodied version of the puffy shirt from Seinfeld. Huber, who I guess is a WWE guy, ring name “Harper,” is also an interesting discovery, shading his lumbering lug with flickers of genuine remorse. He’s one of the only Americans who seems even vaguely willing to acknowledge the humanity of their prey, and Huber does strong work showing the mounting toll this hunt takes.
Mohawk will likely get attention for its explicitly political nature. The villains are all bloodthirsty white Americans, and the film is pitched in such a way that we are meant to laugh and cheer as they meet increasingly elaborate and grotesque ends. Mohawk may largely be a cat-and-mouse game, but underpinning it is very old, but still very, very fresh, righteous fury about the treatment of Native Americans by colonizers.
That’s a truly noble undertaking for a low-budget genre film, but Mohawk doesn’t really have the means to support it. Because it plays as such a riotous punk-art pip, the moments when the film decides to stop and get honest about prejudice and injustice feel misplaced at best, exploitative at worst (the nadir of which is an excruciating, almost completely pointless torture scene that comes close to torpedoing the entire film).
It does not help matters that, despite being cackling monsters deserving of every drop of blood cut out of them, the Americans are far and away the most compelling characters to watch. Farren worked just fine as an unnerving sociopath on Twin Peaks, but he flounders as a romantic lead, and while Horn can certainly suffer like a champ, she’s not substantial enough of a presence to hold down the center of a film (especially with a role that’s largely silent) or to be credible as the kind of destructive force the film posits her as.
I’m actually really curious what the response to Mohawk will be. It would not surprise me in the slightest if it immediately became cultishly adored and entered the common lexicon among horror fans. If nothing else, Mohawk’s reversal of a classic Hollywood paradigm that’s been in place since before Stagecoach in 1939 is well-worth a conversation.
Both this film and We Are Still Here suggest that Geoghegan is an interesting filmmaker with a welcome streak for experimentation, but both also see the filmmaker struggling against a paucity of resources that leave his movies feeling like they aren’t fully formed.
Someday, probably soon, though, he’s going to hit upon the exact right combination of story and budget and the results will be truly spectacular.