Movies
[Review] ‘Mohawk’ Proves Man is the Most Dangerous Monster
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.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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