Occult Dostoyevsky and the Creation of Evil
PYEWACKET – a film by Adam MacDonald – (limited spoilers) ⁓
Leah
This horror thriller puts forward the idea that magical incantations could be keys unlocking little known areas of the human subconscious, and that things summoned from those depths might sometimes take corporeal form. That’s a sensible, intellectual interpretation of the film, but the story is terrifying. No one should watch it alone.
Leah Reyes (Nicole Muñoz) is a high school student whose father died not long ago. She copes with the loss by delving into occult things, including a (fictional) book of spells and rituals called ‘Black River, Black Magic‘ by someone named Rowan Dove (James McGowan). Leah and her friends are fascinated by the book, and by magic both black and white. Mr. Dove is quoted as saying in his book: “I don’t think the devil’s role is to create evil,” writes Dove, “but rather to expose the evil in the hearts of men.”
Leah with Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’
Leah’s mother (Laurie Holden) is having a much worse time dealing with her husband’s death, and she decides to pull up roots and relocate to a pleasant but isolated house in the countryside. She doesn’t understand her daughter’s fascination with the occult. “You wanna be a Manson chick or something? It’s ridiculous,” she tells her daughter. “Ever since your father died, you’ve been into that occult crap.” Leah tries to explain that it makes her feel better, but her mother isn’t finished yet. “Moving on is impossible with you,” she tells a horrified Leah. “Every time I look at you I see your father’s face. God, I wish I could just wipe it off.”
Alone in the woods behind the house, Leah wishes her mother dead, then performs an elaborate ritual and incantation designed to summon a demon called Pyewacket. There is no immediate indication that she succeeds, but as Leah leaves the woods, we watch from the perspective of something following her.
Laurie Holden as Leah’s mom. Holden was Marita Covarrubias in ten episodes of The X-Files.
Leah feels guilt at first for her demon-summoning, but that quickly evolves into terror. Her mother applies for a job at a curio shop in a nearby town (Homespun Treasures in Sioux Sainte Marie, Ontario), and on the way back from that nearly collides with another car. Shaken and feeling a need for company, Leah convinces her best friend Janice (Chloe Rose) to visit and next morning Janice is found cowering in the car refusing to talk to anyone about what happened. It seems like Janice might have been shown the thing she feared most, and what it was surprised her. Leah keeps trying to find out what happened, but Janice maintains her silence.
Rowan Dove, whom Leah had once met at a book signing, tries to be helpful. “With black magic, it’s thrown back,” he cautions her. “It starts with you, and it will end in you.” He tells her how to reverse the spell, then says: “You have to do this before it gets to your mother, or it’s too late.”
Janice
Nicole Muñoz told Dread Central that Laurie Holden was so scary in some scenes, she felt real fear. “Yes, I was absolutely terrified,” she explained. “We had to do a couple takes because I would run too early because I was too scared. What [Laurie Holden] did to her voice manipulation was incredibly creepy to me.”
The tale’s end is filled with horrific uncertainty. What is Pyewacket’s final form? Was the demon conjured from the depths of Leah’s mind, or from some adjacent netherworld? The scene in which a dark figure appears at the foot of Leah’s bed while she is sleeping, as well as the scene with the broken chair are the places to look for the answer to that question.
Miscellaneous Info
Rowan Dove
Pyewacket is a name that England’s self-appointed Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins attributed to one of the familiars of an accused witch in 1644. Hopkins said it was a name “no mortal could invent”. His was the first recorded usage of it.
Director MacDonald told Tom Osborne of Vampire Squid that Pyewacket is part two of a trilogy. “I have this desire to create this trilogy of women surviving extreme circumstances,” he explained. “The first, Backcountry, was about nature, Pyewacket is supernatural and the third will be about domestic violence. The script for the third is called The Wolf at The Door and is already written, but unlike the previous two I did not write this one. Nature is a running theme in all three.” The 2024 film “Out Come the Wolves” might be the third movie to which MacDonald referred.