Abstract: “Listen to three spine-tingling tales. Free-fall into an uncharted journey. Get tangled into a web of dreams,” urges the narrator of beDevil ’s theatrical trailer: “ beDevil : a new cinematic dimension!” BeDevil , Tracey Moffatt’s debut and only feature-length film, is a triptych of ghost stories, immersing audience members into another spectral dimension through its innovative set design, storytelling, and performances. Significantly, beDevil reveals to the audience, through genre-specific tropes such as ghosts, the daily horrors faced by Indigenous Australians in the wake of colonization. This essay dissects beDevil , alongside Moffatt’s other photographic and film experiments, as an important early example of Indigenous filmmaking and, specifically, Indigenous horror, now a growing subgenre both within and outside of Australian cinema. BeDevil , in adapting the horror genre as well as earlier subgenres like the Aboriginal gothic, materializes the haunting presence of colonialism for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, in a way that places their voices at the forefront.
Erica Tortolani (Thu,) studied this question.