Five-Legged Iguana

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #8

INTO THE DARK

Season 1 Episode 3
POOKA!
(December 2018)

“I'm tellin’ ya, this thing tested through the roof. This is gonna rip Christmas a new a$$hole.”

Well, lookee here!

Señor Nacho Vigalondo is back ‘round these parts, with Into the Dark’s third “episode,” Pooka!

Working from a script written by Gerald Olson, Vigalondo brings us the bleak Christmas tale of Wilson (Nyasha Hatendi), who’s come to Los Angeles to “start over,” only to have his “blank slate” apparently begin to be written over by the devious machinations of a disturbingly sinister-looking mascot costume.

In Pooka!, there are horrors amidst the absurdities, and absurdities amidst the horrors.

And, drifting in and out and through the festive carols and twinkling Christmas lights, we catch fleeting glimpses of the demeaning nature of the audition process and the tellingly rude reality of flash-in-the-pan success, and hear the echoing, ultimately hollow apologies of the serial abuser.

Happy Christmas?

Not so much in Pooka!

“Look at all the pretty lights…”

Parting Shot: There are mentions of Vigalondo’s Los Cronocrimenes (Timecrimes) here, and his contribution to V/H/S: Viral here.

(Into the Dark: Pooka! OS courtesy of impawards.com.)