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Christmas Horror, "Pooka!"
Dec. 26th, 2018 11:25 amWhen I read the Hulu blurb about this movie, I immediately gravitated towards it because I thought it would be a stupid horror movie. No lie. If something sounds like its premise is interesting enough, I'll watch it even if I know full well it's going to be garbage in execution. It usually ends with me casually aware of what's happening onscreen with a glance every few minutes while I work on something else, which is how I like to watch movies.
I did not expect it to actually be...good, and that was my mistake.
'Pooka!' presents the premise of a man who loses grip on reality as another personality takes hold of him when he dons the costume of the mascot for the children's toy, Pookah, an unnecessarily disturbing talking toy with wide eye lights, whose main gimmick is that it can be "naughty" or "nice" (it has blue lights and red lights behind its eyes, and can randomly record and play back what it hears--sometimes in a normal voice with blue eyes, and sometimes in a demonic voice with red eyes), but you won't know which. So based on what the blurb tells you, you already have an idea of what to expect: dude puts on costumes, goes on murder sprees.
But that's when things gt a little out of wack. That's not what you see happening onscreen--you'll see the Pooka suit itself go on a violent attack, in rooms or times completely separate from what we see Wilson, the protagonist, doing. He'll be having a conversation in one room, walk into another room, and see Pooka slamming into the wall. Then he'll look down and see his hands covered in blood. The movie goes back and forth on whether he's hallucinating and nothing is happening, or whether he's creating scenes that haven't happened while he goes on rampages. Sometimes the effects of Pooka's attacks remain present after they happen, other times the victim is fine the next time Wilson sees them.
The mish-mash of events and ambiguity as to what's happening and when should make this movie a mess. But....it all fits together in a surprisingly good way. I feel something about Pookah that's similar to hat I feel about It Follows: even though I have very little clue of the real extent of the monster and what it does, I find it interesting rather than confusing or irritating, and it's wrapped together with a Babadook-like monster that brings to unsettling, nauseating life a children's mascot that shouldn't be this frightening while exploring the main character's personal life in-depth. There's room for this to be the result of Wilson's own insanity, there's room for the Pooka suit itself to be haunted along with the toys, and there's easily room enough for both. There's even room for Silent Hill 2-like depictions of the main character re-discovering their own backstory as they explore a supposedly new life.
What brings Pookah together into a movie I don't regret watching is two things: first, the soundtrack. It's perfect--it knows exactly when to go quiet and subtle, and when to really bring out the demented tracks to suit the situation. The second thing is the similar approach to the violence displayed. The movie sticks mostly to disturbingly real sounds of violence while panning away or cutting away so as to leave it unclear what actually happened--not in the pussy way, as in you see Pooka approach with a hammer and then it cuts away. In the real way, in that you see Pooka walk up to a door, and then you get a nice view of some shrubbery while you hear an extended scene of assault and brutal violence from inside. You hear the violence like a neighbor would. Then, when the movie actually does show you explicit, demented violence (or sometimes necrophilia), you're all the more shocked and unnerved for it. Perfect buildup of energy until it's made good on.
All of this, with a few darkly funny laughs here and there.
The movie approaches both the horror and its plot from several different trope-laden angles and offering up a dozen different trope-laden explanations, but by some miracle, instead of creating some disjointed movie that can barely hold itself together for juggling plots, it forms a really decent movie that relies on interpretation of events.
I did not expect it to actually be...good, and that was my mistake.
'Pooka!' presents the premise of a man who loses grip on reality as another personality takes hold of him when he dons the costume of the mascot for the children's toy, Pookah, an unnecessarily disturbing talking toy with wide eye lights, whose main gimmick is that it can be "naughty" or "nice" (it has blue lights and red lights behind its eyes, and can randomly record and play back what it hears--sometimes in a normal voice with blue eyes, and sometimes in a demonic voice with red eyes), but you won't know which. So based on what the blurb tells you, you already have an idea of what to expect: dude puts on costumes, goes on murder sprees.
But that's when things gt a little out of wack. That's not what you see happening onscreen--you'll see the Pooka suit itself go on a violent attack, in rooms or times completely separate from what we see Wilson, the protagonist, doing. He'll be having a conversation in one room, walk into another room, and see Pooka slamming into the wall. Then he'll look down and see his hands covered in blood. The movie goes back and forth on whether he's hallucinating and nothing is happening, or whether he's creating scenes that haven't happened while he goes on rampages. Sometimes the effects of Pooka's attacks remain present after they happen, other times the victim is fine the next time Wilson sees them.
The mish-mash of events and ambiguity as to what's happening and when should make this movie a mess. But....it all fits together in a surprisingly good way. I feel something about Pookah that's similar to hat I feel about It Follows: even though I have very little clue of the real extent of the monster and what it does, I find it interesting rather than confusing or irritating, and it's wrapped together with a Babadook-like monster that brings to unsettling, nauseating life a children's mascot that shouldn't be this frightening while exploring the main character's personal life in-depth. There's room for this to be the result of Wilson's own insanity, there's room for the Pooka suit itself to be haunted along with the toys, and there's easily room enough for both. There's even room for Silent Hill 2-like depictions of the main character re-discovering their own backstory as they explore a supposedly new life.
What brings Pookah together into a movie I don't regret watching is two things: first, the soundtrack. It's perfect--it knows exactly when to go quiet and subtle, and when to really bring out the demented tracks to suit the situation. The second thing is the similar approach to the violence displayed. The movie sticks mostly to disturbingly real sounds of violence while panning away or cutting away so as to leave it unclear what actually happened--not in the pussy way, as in you see Pooka approach with a hammer and then it cuts away. In the real way, in that you see Pooka walk up to a door, and then you get a nice view of some shrubbery while you hear an extended scene of assault and brutal violence from inside. You hear the violence like a neighbor would. Then, when the movie actually does show you explicit, demented violence (or sometimes necrophilia), you're all the more shocked and unnerved for it. Perfect buildup of energy until it's made good on.
All of this, with a few darkly funny laughs here and there.
The movie approaches both the horror and its plot from several different trope-laden angles and offering up a dozen different trope-laden explanations, but by some miracle, instead of creating some disjointed movie that can barely hold itself together for juggling plots, it forms a really decent movie that relies on interpretation of events.
