Previously on 'Into the Dark': 'The Body' gave us some cheap laughs for Halloween and 'Flesh & Blood' gave us some fun thrills on Thanksgiving. This time around we're dealing with a demented twist on Christmas in the form of 'Pooka!', a surreal time-bending psychodrama directed by 'Timecrimes' filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo.
Let's start with the good. Vigalondo is a capable craftsman who imbues this story with an arresting visual aesthetic and stages some beautifully nightmarish hallucinations along the way. The film is a joy to look at, whether we are observing the lead character Wilson (played by Nyasha Hatendi) lost in a flashing fog of confusion in his apartment or going on a freaky rampage as Pooka. Vigalondo's vision of a man's descent into a self-made hell really pops off the screen with color and vibrancy, accompanied by a brilliantly menacing score by Bear McCreary, while Pooka as an ugly Furby-like creature is a rather inspired design.
Hatendi carries much of the film's dramatic weight on his shoulders and he admirably breathes life into a character who is nigh-on impossible to get a bead on. His performance stabilizes the first half of the story, even as events get weirder and weirder. There are some capable supporting performers surrounding him, notably Dale Dickey, but this is really a showcase for Hatendi's range as an actor. Since we are seeing events unfold from his unreliable perspective throughout, he is our only barometer for how we should be feeling in any given moment because the narrative starts to play fast and loose with linearity and logic. For the most part, the feeling is: 'What the hell is going on?!!'
'Pooka!' is structurally compromised due to the nature of its deeply cliched and underwhelming final twist, which informs the entire "plot" that unfolds across the 80 minute running time. The story is essentially a take on the old Charles Dickens fable 'A Christmas Carol', where a man is forced to confront the bad choices in his life and the sins from his past through a mysterious supernatural alchemy. While Dickens is a suitable template for the holiday-theme of this episode, the reveal that Wilson is caught in some kind of hallucinatory purgatory state is the biggest cop out that a mystery like this can deliver an audience. It is the head-slapping dramatic equivalent of 'it was all a dream' or 'he was dead the whole time', which is a frustratingly lazy way to explain all the weirdness that came before. And boy is there a whole lot of weirdness in this film, from the story's set-up of the Pooka costume to the individual sequences of Wilson seemingly losing his grip on reality and sanity. But all of that intrigue, and the whole plot itself, is totally rendered inert by the ending.
Films like 'Jacob's Ladder' and 'Stay' use a similar device of a man in the throes of death imagining a different reality that combines past, present and fantasy to create their psychological and spiritual journeys, only these respective revelations feel both earned and poignant. The identikit denouement in 'Pooka!' merely serves to excuse all the weirdness that came before and exposes the script for not really having a plot to begin with. Essentially, everything takes place inside this guy's mind, whether he is dead, dying or simply driven mad with guilt. Granted, there are some clues weaved throughout Wilson's breakdown that telegraph this twist, such as recurring characters in strange places, overt 'this isn't really happening' dialogue, and non-linear time-jumps, but it isn't enough to justify the creative choices in the narrative. For instance, Pooka himself is almost tangential to everything once you factor in why this is all happening. It was just Wilson's son's toy. Maybe Wilson was the Pooka mascot in real life, maybe he wasn't, it is never made clear. The point is, Pooka's whole naughty or nice gimmick is ultimately irrelevant to the answer of this film's mystery, yet he's the star of the show. It makes me wonder if this script was originally conceived as more of a 'Jekyll and Hyde' retelling and Blumhouse found a way to oar it into their holiday-themed series then tacked on an explain-all final scene.
With that said, the first half of 'Pooka!' is genuinely fresh and involving. The (mis)adventures of Wilson inside Pooka are definitely the highlights, particularly his first apartment-based outburst. Had the film jettisoned the eye-rolling twist at the end and simply made this about a man's mental disintegration into murderous rage via a big, fluffy toy mascot, it may have been rendered even more frightening as a result. It certainly would have felt like an original take on the nature of duality. But alas, we got what we got.
'Into the Dark' continues to tell different kinds of horror stories that will strike chords with different kinds of audiences. 'The Body' seemed to play better with splatter horror comedy crowds, while 'Flesh & Blood' was a hit with classic thriller lovers, so maybe 'Pooka!' will engage the surrealist aficionados with its out-of-body madness. Pretty sure there will be something for everyone once this series completes its 12 months of terror. Keep watching.
I will be reviewing all episodes in the series as and when they come out, so next up is 'New Year, New You'. See you then!
Let's start with the good. Vigalondo is a capable craftsman who imbues this story with an arresting visual aesthetic and stages some beautifully nightmarish hallucinations along the way. The film is a joy to look at, whether we are observing the lead character Wilson (played by Nyasha Hatendi) lost in a flashing fog of confusion in his apartment or going on a freaky rampage as Pooka. Vigalondo's vision of a man's descent into a self-made hell really pops off the screen with color and vibrancy, accompanied by a brilliantly menacing score by Bear McCreary, while Pooka as an ugly Furby-like creature is a rather inspired design.
Hatendi carries much of the film's dramatic weight on his shoulders and he admirably breathes life into a character who is nigh-on impossible to get a bead on. His performance stabilizes the first half of the story, even as events get weirder and weirder. There are some capable supporting performers surrounding him, notably Dale Dickey, but this is really a showcase for Hatendi's range as an actor. Since we are seeing events unfold from his unreliable perspective throughout, he is our only barometer for how we should be feeling in any given moment because the narrative starts to play fast and loose with linearity and logic. For the most part, the feeling is: 'What the hell is going on?!!'
'Pooka!' is structurally compromised due to the nature of its deeply cliched and underwhelming final twist, which informs the entire "plot" that unfolds across the 80 minute running time. The story is essentially a take on the old Charles Dickens fable 'A Christmas Carol', where a man is forced to confront the bad choices in his life and the sins from his past through a mysterious supernatural alchemy. While Dickens is a suitable template for the holiday-theme of this episode, the reveal that Wilson is caught in some kind of hallucinatory purgatory state is the biggest cop out that a mystery like this can deliver an audience. It is the head-slapping dramatic equivalent of 'it was all a dream' or 'he was dead the whole time', which is a frustratingly lazy way to explain all the weirdness that came before. And boy is there a whole lot of weirdness in this film, from the story's set-up of the Pooka costume to the individual sequences of Wilson seemingly losing his grip on reality and sanity. But all of that intrigue, and the whole plot itself, is totally rendered inert by the ending.
Films like 'Jacob's Ladder' and 'Stay' use a similar device of a man in the throes of death imagining a different reality that combines past, present and fantasy to create their psychological and spiritual journeys, only these respective revelations feel both earned and poignant. The identikit denouement in 'Pooka!' merely serves to excuse all the weirdness that came before and exposes the script for not really having a plot to begin with. Essentially, everything takes place inside this guy's mind, whether he is dead, dying or simply driven mad with guilt. Granted, there are some clues weaved throughout Wilson's breakdown that telegraph this twist, such as recurring characters in strange places, overt 'this isn't really happening' dialogue, and non-linear time-jumps, but it isn't enough to justify the creative choices in the narrative. For instance, Pooka himself is almost tangential to everything once you factor in why this is all happening. It was just Wilson's son's toy. Maybe Wilson was the Pooka mascot in real life, maybe he wasn't, it is never made clear. The point is, Pooka's whole naughty or nice gimmick is ultimately irrelevant to the answer of this film's mystery, yet he's the star of the show. It makes me wonder if this script was originally conceived as more of a 'Jekyll and Hyde' retelling and Blumhouse found a way to oar it into their holiday-themed series then tacked on an explain-all final scene.
With that said, the first half of 'Pooka!' is genuinely fresh and involving. The (mis)adventures of Wilson inside Pooka are definitely the highlights, particularly his first apartment-based outburst. Had the film jettisoned the eye-rolling twist at the end and simply made this about a man's mental disintegration into murderous rage via a big, fluffy toy mascot, it may have been rendered even more frightening as a result. It certainly would have felt like an original take on the nature of duality. But alas, we got what we got.
'Into the Dark' continues to tell different kinds of horror stories that will strike chords with different kinds of audiences. 'The Body' seemed to play better with splatter horror comedy crowds, while 'Flesh & Blood' was a hit with classic thriller lovers, so maybe 'Pooka!' will engage the surrealist aficionados with its out-of-body madness. Pretty sure there will be something for everyone once this series completes its 12 months of terror. Keep watching.
I will be reviewing all episodes in the series as and when they come out, so next up is 'New Year, New You'. See you then!
