Pooka Lives! aka If Slenderman was a Furby

To fully appreciate the self-awareness of Pooka Lives!, you’d first have to watch Pooka.

Pooka is a psychological horror with an emotional heart. Pooka Lives! is every Internet commentator who bitched about how Pooka wasn’t a creature/slasher film.

Let me explain.

Pooka is a movie that’s so good that it can cross genres. There is enough material left over from the first film that Hulu Originals looked it over and said “Yeah, I guess we can take all those red herrings and make it into the slasher people want after all”.

The Official Summary:

A group of thirty-something friends from high school create their own Creepypasta about Pooka for laughs, but are shocked when it becomes so viral on the Internet that it actually manifests more murderous versions of the creature.

The Metaphor:

The toxicity of public commentary.

While Pooka is a sincere interpretation of the horror of the unpredictable nature of an abuser, Pooka Lives! is…well, less so. Not to say it isn’t sincere. Only the subject matter is lighter, the jokes are somewhat meta, and the Pooka is actually a monster.

It’s still a “man in a suit” the way that a tabloid story can take on a life of its own, puppeteered by the masses - but it more cleanly follows the lines of a traditional horror-comedy creature feature. Pooka Lives! is made from the scraps of possibilities introduced in Pooka, morphed by the commentary of the Internet. Pooka Lives! exists because of that commentary and becomes real and literal because it’s what people wanted it to be. In the Pooka universe and our own.

The Plot:

Before I can tell you about Pooka Lives!, reviewing some of the red herrings from Pooka is a necessity. Here we go:

In Pooka, the MC (main character, keep up) is an actor. He auditions for a role by practicing a monologue from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. But when he gets to the audition, he’s abruptly cut off and made to perform a series of actions in rapid succession, faster and faster:

Hold your arms up. Now together like a triangle. Out like an offering. Now fly like a plane.

The talent agent hires the MC, telling him that he’s the perfect guy to bring Pooka to life. We’re introduced to the not-creepy-at-all Pooka suit, and although the MC insists that he’s an actor, he agrees to the generous terms that come with being the living mascot. It’s a dream, the agent says. And indeed it was.

This red herring is insanely effective because part of the tension with Pooka is trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The Pooka dance immediately puts you in the mind of a ritual, as if these motions are invoking the Pooka. Like Suspiria. But with a Furby.

The second major red herring is the proliferation of Pookas. It begins with the suit but soon every child in the city has one. You’d think that would come into play, but the kids just dump them in the streets after all the Pookas go defective. The dolls don’t do anything naughty, because the literal Pooka isn’t the point. (Spoiler, it’s about an abuser coming to terms with the fact that he’s a bad person and that his actions have far-reaching, permanent consequences that are entirely his fault.)

So.

What Pooka Lives! does is take these red herrings and give the audience the movie that Pooka could’ve been. The attitude is very much “Oh, you wanted a straight horror flick about a vengeful spirit and creepy doll that comes to life and kills people? Not a well-crafted metaphor? Fine. FINE.”

Derrick (Malcolm Barrett) is our protagonist. He’s a writer who’s running away from a failed book. Not because the book was bad, but because the subjects of his book are social media influencers. The most obnoxious of them all, Jax the Youtuber, has sicced his mindless horde of followers after Derrick. The movie calls this him being “canceled” but I don’t think they quite know what it means. It’s a little of that boomer-humor poking fun at cancel culture, but I’m under the impression that people are usually canceled for doing and saying heinous things, not ragging on Youtubers (the way boomers do). I could be wrong, I’ve never been cool.

Our writer hero goes all the way back to his hometown, known also as the birthplace of Pooka, complete with the Pooka corporate HQ. In this universe, Pooka is as ubiquitous as Furby in the late ‘90s. Except that its creator went a little nuts and murdered her husband with a pair of scissors and then set herself on fire when the company that owns Pooka decided that they were going to alter her design.

The hometown gang is there: the Ex Girlfriend he left to pursue a career in New York, the friends who are now married with a kid, and the friend who doesn’t realize how hot he is after losing a ton of weight. They each double their usefulness: the Ex works at the Pooka HQ where our failed writer now works as a copywriter. The married couple takes him in and their house is the hangout spot for the group. Also, the wife is into the supernatural, and the husband is a doofy, regular-guy cynic. The hot friend is a Sheriff’s Deputy, gay (as a side note and not a plot point, which is great), and was a first responder to the scene of the Pooka creator’s murder-suicide. They’re all doing some heavy lifting here, which I love. No unnecessary characters, thank you. The side characters are more caricatures than actual people but that’s okay because it’s a horror movie. We don’t need to know the backstory of why the boss is a dick or why the Youtuber is obnoxious or why the Pooka mascot acts like a spoiled brat. They’re all one-note, but it’s the right note for each one.

One thing, though - I don’t like that the babysitter died. She didn’t deserve it. I like my slashers with at least a hint of “you had it coming”, which our main crew totally does, seeing as how they’re the reason that the Pooka starts killing people.

You see, our writer, Derrick, is very hurt over the failure of his book and being driven back to his quaint podunk town by a Youtuber. He’s also relentlessly harassed online by Jax’s followers and once they find out he’s in town, they come after him IRL.

Oh, wait. It’s the babysitter that posts that he’s in town. She’s the reason Jax’s followers know where he is, and then Jax orders them to harass him. Okay, got it. Guess she had it coming after all.

Moving on. While Derrick is reminiscing with his old pals, the topic of the Pooka murder comes up. Our Hot Cop friend shows them a photo of the burned corpse. The crime happened only six months ago, and weirds them all out a bit. The Ex and Derrick both resent their boss at Pooka HQ, and Derrick thinks of a way to get back at the online Influencer Community: by making them do…a really dumb challenge. Our woo-woo Mommy definitely isn’t down, but the group starts spitballing a spooky challenge to make “viral”.

Of course the Pooka dance has to be utilized, so they say that it’s how to summon the Pooka. Eat some ash (a nod to the fire set by the creator - and meta, as the original Pooka commercial shows Pooka kneeling in flames), do the Pooka song and dance, and add the lines “if you’re naughty he’ll come for you”, and boom! Copypasta ready.

One anonymous post in Jax’s comment section later and almost overnight hundreds of people have tried the Pooka challenge. Derrick laments that the most popular thing he’s ever written is anonymous because it is insanely popular. Pooka HQ loves it - free publicity, right? They even make their employees do it.

Derrick follows all of this news somewhat gleefully. Even as the stories begin to change. Forums are filling with reports of Pookas being seen outside of windows. Tall, monstrous, clawed creatures that are there to judge them. A German man is accused of murdering his family, but he insists that it was a Pooka. Our first on-camera death is the satisfying end of Jax, live-streamed and everything. A Pooka doll in his closet transforms into a full-size Pooka and slashes Jax, who dies screaming for his life. Fun!

Ex Girlfriend is accosted by a similar mascot-sized Pooka at her car after she’d run out on a dinner with Derrick because he was shit-talking their town. She’d accused him of secretly loving all the attention of being “canceled” and he confirmed that he never wanted to be a nobody in a small town. Ex said that wasn’t that he left, it was that he cut all ties with his real friends when he went off to chase his dream.

There’s something to this sentiment that’s close to what Pooka Lives! is trying to say. Although it’s not as metaphorical as the first Pooka, all successful creature features have a meaning and Pooka Lives! is reflecting on the toxicity of buying into online communities that dominate our daily lives with viral trash while we lose touch with our real life, homes, and friends. But Pooka Lives! is smart enough not to linger too long on this argument before having the ex hit the Pooka with her car. It scrapes NAUGHTY into the paint; it had been carrying a huge pair of scissors.

Pooka HQ has still been working on a re-design of Pooka (they weren’t going to let one murder-suicide stop them, were they? They are a business.) which has all their staff working hard on the upcoming unveiling. Hundreds of Pookas in boxes are stored away at HQ, and so is the precious original Pooka. The hype of Pooka and the Pooka challenge is real and only getting crazier. Even Derrick decides that he’s going to do the Pooka challenge - which…why? This has got to be a comment on why people do these stupid online challenges. There’s no real reason, he just wants to see what the fuss is about. And also to confirm that Pooka doesn’t actually come after you in a murderous, judgmental, rage. Probably the most dangerous way to confirm, seeing as how he’s in an office that literally has a Pooka at almost every desk. But okay. Fine.

Derrick does the challenge and, no surprise here, the Pooka immediately comes after him. It’s changed, though. It’s not the cuddly mascot, it’s…more animalistic. Slender, weird, and more demonic than the original suit. The idea is that whenever people add to the Pooka Copypasta myth, the Pooka morphs into whatever the most trending belief is. I like the idea, but for me, it’s nowhere near as scary as the blank face of the OG Pooka, where you didn’t know what it was going to do unless its eyes were a certain color. These Pookas are almost exclusively red-eyed murder monsters, which kind of misses the whole point of Pooka’s unpredictability. It would have been nice to see some good-guy Pooka moments only for the switch to flip and for the carnage to ensue. That’s just me. They didn’t waste time with that, though. The Internet wanted scary Pooka, the Copypasta is about scary Pooka, we get scary Pooka.

Regular Joe Skeptic Dad and Mystic Momma get home to find their babysitter missing and their daughter claiming that there’s someone in her room. With some effort, they fight off a Pooka, rescue their daughter, and discover that the babysitter has been killed. Then the gang gets together. They add up all the clues and come to terms with the fact that they’re the reason everything is going to hell.

Pictured: The Gang discovering who released the evil Pookas

A ticking clock is introduced in the form of “#PookaApocalypse”, a new addition to the online Pooka Copypasta. It states that when the new Pooka is unveiled, all the Pooka dolls will come to life and kill everyone on the planet.

Our gang introduces their own silver bullet: Derrick writes that if they set the original Pooka on fire, it will cancel the #PookaApocalypse. Derrick, Ex and Hot Cop try briefly to exorcise the ghost of Pooka’s creator from the place where she died, but that’s a no-go. This conveniently gives the gang a chance to smartly ship the kid off-screen to grandma’s. The kid was the only weak character; she existed pretty much as a set piece to characterize her parents and to set up the babysitter and home attack. I know what I said earlier but I literally forgot about her until this part. I appreciate that they didn’t have her spouting an “I learned something today” line, or being a victim that needs to be saved. She’s out of the way the whole story, and that’s how I like most kids in movies.

Hot Cop is hospitalized following a confrontation with a Pooka at the creator’s house. Just about out of options, the gang plans to break into the Pooka HQ, stall the unveiling, and destroy the original Pooka doll. Hilariously enough, it was the CEO’s idea to start #PookaApocalypse. Because nothing says corporate like a company horning their way into whatever the youth is up to. Ya know. To make money. I know the Pooka Copypasta is evil. But at least it was free. The CEO decided it was enough to monetize, so he upped the stakes so that everyone would be tuning in to the unveiling. By using what the kids love most…the promise of chaos and global destruction? It’s like when that Pepsi commercial monetized civil unrest by implying that a taste for Pepsi could unite us all. Except if Pepsi actually ended the world. The point is, the CEO is a douche.

The married couple is tasked with finding the OG Pooka doll while Ex and Derrick cause a distraction. Derrick is fired on the spot for not doing his job, which is fair. He goes to assist the couple. In a short span of a few minutes are my two favorite (of many) jokes in the movie:

One: Mystic Mama has what she calls a Spirit Stick. She tells her husband that it wards off evil spirits. He asks her, “Isn’t that cultural appropriation?” She sincerely replies “Is it?” before they quickly get back to the task at hand. I love the sincerity of this exchange because it touches on an actually complicated topic with a whip-quick acknowledgment. There’s a ton of discussion about white American witches doing what Americans do and taking bits and pieces of ritual practices and cultural beliefs and melding it into a loose practice of its own. It’s a whole thing, believe me. But what Pooka Lives! didn’t do was have either of the two black actors’ characters be the one with a knowledge of the supernatural. They didn’t have a Mexican maid come in and lecture them all about the Spirit of the Pooka. They let an American white woman bring all the woo-woo and show a little thoughtful concern when asked if what she’s doing is appropriation - and then they moved the fuck on. It’s great.

Two: The married couple is in the storage room with the Pookas. Mystic Mama has the OG Pooka doll in hand when the door is thrown open! A Pooka stands there. Its eyes flash blue. Oh thank god, they say - and a red-eyed Pooka immediately stabs that Pooka from behind and takes its place in the doorway. This one bit made me forgive them for excluding any “nice” Pookas from the story.

The Pooka attacks the couple until Derrick arrives as backup. Setting it on fire didn’t work - the Copypasta had morphed once more. Fire wouldn’t work because the husband wasn’t killed by fire, he was stabbed. Reading this, Derrick grabs one of the biggest pairs of scissors I’ve ever seen and rushes to help. When he gets there, he hands his phone to New Believer Dad so that the murder of the OG Pooka can be live-streamed. The #PookaApocalypse is nigh. Also, Derrick probably wants to be the center of attention, but it’s not directly addressed. He and the Pooka battle, and the live-stream is blowing up. But, the Dad says, everyone is rooting for Pooka. (Again, toxic online culture at its best.) No matter, the Pooka is taken down with teamwork from the gang! Ex Girlfriend is there and helps to kick Pooka’s ass with a fire extinguisher. Hot Cop shows up and blasts the Pooka before Derrick gives it the final stab.

But it still doesn’t work. It’s too out of hand. Maybe too many people wanted Pooka to win. This is the end. The literal end of the movie.

We then see Pooka Lives!’s final form.

In the last few seconds of the movie and through the artwork credit scenes, Pooka Lives! becomes Ash vs Evil Dead meets DND. Each of your five playable characters features a signature weapon, a distinct fighting class, awesome kickass Pooka-stomping action, and much more!

Seriously, the story goes off the rails with a trajectory that’s shooting for the stars. It lands perfectly. By the end of the movie, you’re already rooting for this band of likable characters, and the creators committed to the tone by saying: Fuck it. Full speed ahead.

I want to see Pooka Lives Again, Night of the Living Pooka.

The best possible follow-up has to be a zombie-esque, one-night-of-chaos, off-the-walls horror-comedy. They mentioned a grandma? Well, I want to see grandma with a shotgun blowing Pookas away. I want the White Witch of the Midwest to really get some magic going. I want Derrick’s stories to continue to come to life.

**For fun, here’s a breakdown of what I think the character classes are:

Derrick: Bard | He has the power of story. He may multi-class as a rogue, as his weapon is a short blade…of scissors.

Mystic Mama: Druid | Her knowledge of the arcane involves crystals, salt, and herbs. Weapon: Spirit Stick.

Dad: Barbarian / Warrior | Brute strength rules here. No brains, no magic. Weapon: Mop.

Ex GF: Ranger | Dexterous fighter with high intellect. Weapon: Fire extinguisher.

Hot Cop: Paladin | Lawful good by nature. Weapon: Six-shooter.

Review:

Pooka Lives! is one of the best sequels I’ve ever seen, even if it is a non-sequitur. It excels as a horror-comedy that accomplishes a tongue-in-cheek depth while hitting all the beats of a classic supernatural slasher. It’s as fun as a bad scary movie without being bad, and would be a great watch with friends. Using a non-teen coed cast of fantastic actors cleverly captures the Gen X / Millenial overlap as we collectively are getting old enough to gripe about what the youth are up to while we worry about careers, kids, credibility, and aging out of being the most relevant generation. It’s smarter than its surface would indicate, and I for one, am pleasantly surprised.

4/5