Thus far, 2018, like its predecessor, has been a good year at the box office for horror. Small-budget films like A Quiet Place and Hereditary have been all the buzz, breaking into the mainstream. Two lesser-known recent films, Mohawk (2017) and Downrange (2017), are also deserving of attention. They recently became available on streaming services and speak to our present moment, especially in the context of immigration/the “other” and gun violence.
Directed by Ted Geoghegan and set during the War of 1812, Mohawk takes place in the American wilderness as Americans track down a British officer, Joshua Pinsmail (Eamon Farren), who befriends a tribe of Mohawk Indians and encourages them to join the British against the Americans. The Mohawks want to remain neutral but are forced to choose sides when members of the tribe are slaughtered.
Here is the official trailer for Mohawk:
The protagonist, Okwaho (Kaniehtiio Horn), eventually seeks revenge on the Americans after they brutally kill her family and loved ones. She is one of the strongest aspects of the film, a female warrior worth rooting for, especially after she undergoes a transformation, shaves her head, and enacts a gory level of violence upon her assailants.
Kaniehtiio Horn as Okwaho
Mohawk‘s other strength lies in its depiction of how colonizers have treated the “other” historically. This is underscored by the film’s level of violence, including torture inflicted against Okwaho’s lover, Calvin Two Rivers (Justin Rain). The rhetoric against the Mohawks used by Colonel Holt (Ezra Buzzington) is eerily similar to some of the language the alt-right uses to villainize immigrants and refugees today, especially in Europe and the U.S. He refers to the Mohawks as “rats” more than once, and his minions propagate other stereotypes about Native Americans, saying that they are cannibals and inherently violent. Recently, Trump said that immigrants are “infesting” the U.S., and his strategy has been to link them to violence, especially the M-13 gang. This rhetoric comes as the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy has separated immigrant children from their parents.
Colonel Holt played by Ezra Buzzington
The American translator, Yancy (Noah Segan), generally has sympathy towards the Native people and understands them better than the rest of the Americans. At one point, he lets Okwaho escape instead of turning her over. However, he is seen by his comrades as being inferior. They frequently mock him, primarily through the lens of masculinity. They don’t think he has what it takes to be a soldier, and they even belittle his appearance, including his French-like beret.
Mohawk is not a perfect film by any means. Some of the acting is subpar at times. The jerky camera angles in the first half of the film can be off-putting, and the film would have benefited from a larger budget. The gore is important to the extent that it highlights the violence against Native people, but at other times, it feels campy. However, the film feels relevant for this current moment, the year of the woman. There is something to be said for women on screen finding their strength and wielding it against powerful men. Okwaho certainly understands the firepower and might that the colonizers have, but that doesn’t mean she won’t resist and fight.
Check out the trailer for Downrange:
Directed by Ryûhei Kitamura, Downrange is a nerve-jangling film about a group of friends who are sniped at one by one by an unknown assailant after their tire blows out on a barren California road. Two of the friends are picked off in the opening 15 minutes, and from there, the film is relentless, especially as the survivors crouch behind the vehicle as bullets ricochet and ping off of the doors. The extreme gore, coupled with the constant news of mass shootings in the U.S., makes the film difficult to watch, but it also makes us think about how we respond to these shootings.
At one point, Todd (Rod Hernandez) confesses that he didn’t even know the name of the first victim, Jeff (Jason Tobias), who dies while trying to change the flat. How many of the victims from any of the recent mass shootings can we name? How long do they stay in the headlines? Generally, the film’s main characters are fairly well-drawn, thus making the violence they endure that much more horrific. Todd tells his friends that he and his girlfriend, Sara (Alexa Yeames), were planning to start their life together. At one point, he lays in the road next to her dead body and holds her hand.
Keren played by Stephanie Pearson and Todd played by Rod Hernandez
Near the conclusion, a group of state police finally arrive, but their answer to the situation is more gunpower, which echoes the NRA’s argument that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to arm everyone. This only leads to more violence and an increased body count. One of the most disturbing scenes occurs when Keren (Stephanie Pearson) discovers the number of victims the gunman has killed. They are etched on his rifle. No names. Just statistics.
In the era of mass shootings, Downrange makes us question whether or not we’ve become numb to the violence and the lives lost. Mohawk, meanwhile, is another female-led revenge movie, but one that highlights the language and attitudes used to demonize and justify violence against the “other.”
Mohawk is currently streaming on Netflix, and Downrange is streaming on Shudder.
Brian Fanelli is a poet and essayist whose works has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, World Literature Today, The Paterson Literary Review, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and elsewhere. His latest collection of poems, Waiting for the Dead to Speak (NYQ Books), won the 2017 Devil’s Kitchen Poetry Prize. Brian has an M.F.A from Wilkes University and a Ph.D. from SUNY Binghamton University. He is an Assistant Professor of English at Lackawanna College and teaches a Horror Literature and Film course. He blogs about the genre at www.brianfanelli.com.
Brian has written previously for Horror Homeroom on Hereditary and Revenge.
