‘The Moogai’ Cast Says ‘Get Out’ Was ‘The North Star’ for Making a Horror Film with Historical Roots

The concept of a boogeyman that snatches children is well known throughout the Aboriginal community. “We all shit ourselves basically from when we’re a very young age because Aboriginal parents love to use evil spirits to scare you into going to sleep,” said “The Moogai” star Shari Sebbens with a laugh during her visit to the IndieWire Studio at Sundance, presented by Dropbox, alongside co-stars Meyne Wyatt and Bella Heathcote.

But the story of “The Moogai” does have roots in the real life horrors faced by the Aboriginal community that even fellow Australians are unfamiliar with. “As a result of the stolen generations, the forced removal of Aboriginal children, tribes created stories to teach kids to run away from the white man when he turned up to steal them. So it’s this weird thing where culture was shifted because of a necessity to protect our children,” said Sebbens.

In writer-director Jon Bell’s film, Sebbens plays a mother going through a postpartum breakdown as the people closest to her, like her husband Fergus (Wyatt) and work friend Becky (Heathcote), ignore her warnings that the Moogai, the aforementioned malevolent spirit, is coming to steal her newborn. Though it satiates genre fans’ appetite for a creature feature, the cast sees it as a social horror in tune with groundbreaking American movies that have incorporated how racism continues to haunt people’s everyday lives.

“I think ‘Get Out’ is the north star in the genre,” said Wyatt. “You are aiming for that balance of entertainment and finding how you can tell a story with those educational elements, but it being affecting.” In talking to Americans on the ground at Sundance about “The Moogai,” Heathcote said she noticed “no one has known anything about the stolen generation. No one’s been like, ‘Oh yeah, I heard about that.’”

Sebbens added, “Australia likes to export bronze bodies on Bondi Beach running along in slow motion and pretending that we’re really, really good at not being racist. But it’s an incredibly racist country.” Though she said the trio feel “the weight of responsibility to talk about the truth of our nation,” Sebbens and her co-stars of “The Moogai” have still been “wanting to celebrate what it is to be bringing an indigenous film to an incredible festival like this and the joy that it brings for artists for their stories to reach an audience.”

Check out the full interview with “The Moogai” cast above.

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival runs January 18 to 28, with festival talks taking place January 19 to 26. See the full list of IndieWire Studio at Sundance, presented by Dropbox.

Dropbox supports and champions independent makers, crews, and teams behind the camera who bring their unique perspectives to life at the Sundance Film Festival. We’re proud that over 60% of films at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival leveraged Dropbox in their filmmaking process.It takes a monumental effort for film projects to go from ideation to completion, and Dropbox is dedicated to helping filmmakers get their projects across the finish line faster. Filmmakers used Dropbox as one organized homebase to keep video files secure, to remotely collaborate with teams around the world, and to get real-time video feedback with Dropbox Replay.