Man is the most dangerous monster. Demons possess and trick their hosts into committing stigmata upon themselves, vampires suck their victims dry and pick their teeth clean with their bones, and werewolves transform everyday people into ferocious beasts hell-bent on destruction by way of tearing innocent patrons apart, but no creature is as deadly or deranged as an animal that would use its thumbs to forge a fatal weapon which can end lives with the slight pull of a trigger. Creatures of the night pale in comparison to the entities lurking in the woods waiting for well-timed capture, surveying the land with greedy gold-speckled eyes, plotting how best to kill what stands in its way of profit. In this New World where the man with the biggest gun wins, no Native is safe from the destruction that the white man wields. No Indian goes to bed at night fearing the supernatural creatures lurking under his bed – they dread the chaos that the sun drenched day brings, when their Aryan brothers finally decide once and for all that they want this land for themselves.

The follow up to his 2015 crowd pleasing debut feature We Are Still Here, Ted Geoghegan is back furious vengeance in his latest film, simply titled Mohawk. Set during the War of 1812, the film follows the story of Oak, a strong Native American Mohawk princess who will do anything to protect her family from the white settlers slowly encroaching onto their land. At her side is her Indian lover Calvin Two Rivers, and her Red Coat lover Joshua – yes, that’s right, Oak is in an open bisexual relationship with two men from polar opposite sides of the globe. Despite the madness around her and all of the men seeking to divide her world into factions based on race, Oak manages to find the grace in the little community she has crafted here through her romance. The three people in this relationship succeed where strategic pioneers have failed – they look past surface skin color and find love nestled within each others’ eyes.

In the movie, a group of peaceful Mohawk Native American live in humble coexistence with New England settlers in their little corner of colonial America. That is, until one day when the white man has decided he’s had enough of this cohabitation and seeks to snatch up the land all for himself and himself only – even if that means killing every single Indian currently residing on this land in order to achieve it.

Undeniably, Mohawk has its issues – watching these characters race over the seemingly same patch of grass (where it was apparently filmed in upstate New York) makes the journey feel somewhat hard to follow after a while, as if these people were almost running around in circles, and the production value makes it quite apparent that this is a low budget film, especially when one stops to take a gander at some of the costumes. However, despite its small shortcomings, where Geoghegan succeeds is in his brave attempt to create a universe in which the settlers of the New World are not the heroes we’ve come to believe, but in actuality, thieves lying in wait to pillage and maim everyone in their path until they’ve snuffed out an entire group of people and their culture from existence. Where some filmmakers play it safe by crafting crowd pleasing universes in which everyone in the audience will adhere to and agree with what they’re witnessing onscreen, Geoghegan casts normality aside in favor of some hard truth – we white people stole this land, and our history isn’t as romantic and gratifying as some of us have been led to believe. It’s an intriguing story, not only because it’s one we haven’t heard very often, but also because it’s a flip on perspective, turning the “savages” we’ve grown accustomed to into innocent prey, and turning us, those who would rather dust the unfortunate truth under the rug, into the ones to fear. It will be interesting to see what this atypical filmmaker can conjure up next, especially given his already impressive track record thus far.