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| Human-sized furry creature sitting at a diner table. |
Answer me one question. Are these the shadows
of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?
In the third installment of Blumhouse’s monthly horror movie
installments on Hulu, Pooka! is the
story of a struggling actor who gets a little too into his part as the titular
Pooka, and begins to spiral, as he loses track of who he is outside of Pooka.
This definitely isn’t the worst horror movie I’ve ever seen,
and therein lies the problem. I felt like this one had more potential, but it
does need more work. Problematically, I’m more on the narrative side, and I
wouldn’t know how to balance the cinematography and other elements that were
good with editing the script as a whole.
Pooka! has its
optimum potential as a story about an abuser realizing the logical outcome of
his behavior, but as a coherent film, it is hindered by several major issues:
1) It is trying too hard to hide the reveal with confusion despite having given
it away, and 2) it is trying to do and be so many things that the abuser angle
becomes a secondary note to the wackiness. It’s about commercialism, but also a bad
father/husband who ended up killing his wife and child. It’s an homage to both
A Christmas Carol and “An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge.”
Below, are tons of spoilers, but since this has been out for
a year, we’ll deal with it.
