The thing about films is that there are so many of them, and they come into existence in so many ways. Back when I was a kid, you learned about movies through the newspaper, or television or maybe radio ads. Sometimes word of mouth, or, if you were lucky enough to see a film in a theater, through previews. These days the internet has billions of pages and many streaming services and movies are produced faster than we can watch them. All of which is to say Pyewacket, in my opinion, should be better known. It’s an effective, thoughtful, and seasonal movie that caught me off guard. It’s a Canadian independent film, not the product of a major studio, so it didn’t get the notice that massive advertising budgets provide. I found it by scrolling on Amazon Prime.
Pyewacket is a teen angst movie (I wasn’t an angsty teenager—it came a little later for me). Leah Reyes and her friends are into the occult. Leah’s father has died and her mother’s having a difficult time coping. She has decided to sell the house and move away. Leah, who has a small circle of close friends, doesn’t want to move. After mother and daughter are in the new house they fight, with her mother insulting Leah’s friends. Leah goes into the woods and summons Pyewacket to kill her mother. After this, mother and daughter make up and the tension builds. Leah doesn’t want her to die but she’s set something in motion that she can’t control. There are some really scary scenes in this movie, often without showing anything explicit. In fact, views of Pyewacket are brief and indistinct, which really works.
This is an October movie. Moody and evocative, it raises some very real questions. Not all of them are resolved. The occultist Leah consults informs her that Pyewacket is very deceptive and she can’t believe what she sees. This leads to a tense resolution and somewhat abrupt ending. It is very well done. The point about deceptive spirits raises one of the truly potentially demonic facets of human society. Deception throws truth off balance. (Some of the more cynical politicians know and use this for their own ends, as we sadly know.) Deception is dangerous and that seems to be almost the moral of this movie. There are no villains here, but extreme actions can’t be taken back. If you’re in the right mood, and the dark is just right, this is the kind of movie that delivers. And I only found it by chance.
