‘Pooka Lives!’ cements the evil stuffed animal’s future as a horror icon

A review of the horror film, on Hulu now

In December 2018, while their fledgling Into the Dark film series was still getting in gear, Hulu and Blumhouse released Pooka! as their Christmas-themed feature. Timecrimes and Colossal director Nacho Vigalondo’s film is a quirky, ultimately deeply-unsettling descent into madness, about a man who gets a job wearing a toy mascot costume for the holidays and soon finds the titular toy taking over his life. Pooka is like a fucked-up Furby from Hell, a furry little toy with a tendency to repeat whatever its owner says in either “nice” or “naughty” mode — either sweetly, or like a demon. And when it’s in “naughty” mode… you better watch out.

The Pooka doll has cropped up in other Into the Dark films, making cameos in Pilgrim, Uncanny Annie, and My Valentine, among others, and there’s a devilish ongoing twitter account that’ll interact with you in naughty mode if you tweet about him. Now, for its April release — the first one not directly tied to an already-existing holiday — Into the Dark has revisited the Pooka-verse with Pooka Lives!