Who By Brave Assent, Who By Accident
PYEWACKET – a film by Adam MacDonald – (limited spoilers) ⁓
Leah
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, 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 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?” she asks Leah. “It’s ridiculous. 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 continues ruthlessly. “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 ((Homespun Treasures in Sioux Sainte Marie, Ontario), and on the way back from doing that nearly collides with another car. Leah, who is in the car with her mother, is shaken and feels a need for company. She convinces her best friend Janice (Chloe Rose) to come and spend the night. All seems to go well, but the next morning Janice is found cowering in the car, too frightened to even speak. Were it not for Janice’s visit, this tale might be considered psychological horror with Leah’s troubles contained in her own mind. But Janice was genuinely and profoundly frightened by something. She might have been shown the thing she feared most, and been surprised by what it was. At school, 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
The ending is filled with horrific uncertainty. What is Pyewacket’s final form? Was the demon conjured from some adjacent netherworld? A scene in which a dark figure appears at the foot of Leah’s bed while she is sleeping, and another with a broken chair, coupled with what happened to Janice, make one wonder who it was that the demon possessed, because we never find out for sure who was killed in the fire. I personally favour the notion that Leah’s mother was possessed when she visited the curio shop.
The film is terrifying. No one should watch it alone.
Miscellaneous Info
Rowan Dove
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.”
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.
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.