October 10. An Indigenous Horror Film

Directed by Ted Geoghegan (We Are Still Here), who co-wrote it with Grady Hendrix, Mohawk is about Mohawk woman Okwaho (Kaniehtiio Horn), a woman torn between two men, Mohawk warrior Calvin (Justin Rain) and British soldier Joshua (Eamon Farren). One is the father of her child. While her tribe is trying to stay neutral in the battles between the U.S. and the UK, their people are being killed by the Americans. Calvin is driven to do something; he sets a fort ablaze and kills more than twenty soldiers. Only six soldiers and a translator Yancy (Noah Segan) survive.

As they plan their revenge, they encounter the Mohawk. In the first battle, Okwaho’s mother, Wentahawi (Sheri Foster) and the American commander, Colonel Charles Hawkes (Jack Gwaltney), are killed. They will not be the last casualties, as Captain Hezekiah Holt (Ezra Buzzington) hunts Calvin, finally killing him, but at the cost of several of his men, including his son Myles (Ian Colletti). In retaliation, he also hunts down Okwaho, shooting her in the chest and killing Joshua.

Somehow she survives and shaves her head before creating armor and, well, killing everyone in her way, including the gigantic Private Lachlan Allsopp (Jonathan Huber, the sadly departed pro wrestler Brodie Lee). Finally, she battles Holt into a tree, leaving him impaled as her people look to her as if she’s a spirit. Maybe she is.

Kaniehtiio Horn is a native Mohawk; Justin Rain is Plains Cree; Sheri Foster is a member of the Cherokee Nation.

I’ve always loved the work of both Geoghegan and Hendrix. In spite of, or maybe even because of, the budget, this succeeds in presenting a violent and unyielding world where the guilty, for once, are punished.

You can watch this on Tubi.