Into the Dark tells two strong Christmas horror stories with Pooka! and A Nasty Piece of Work, but one is more satisfying than the other.
Hulu's series with Blumhouse Productions, Into the Dark, delivers seasonal anthology horror so it can tackle a holiday like Christmas from multiple angles. To date, there have been two Christmas horror movies in the Blumhouse anthology, season 1's Pooka! and season 2's A Nasty Piece of Work, but which one is better?
The relationship between anthology storytelling and the horror genre has only gotten more intense in the recent years. There are all sorts of unique ways that these series examine and showcase horror, but Hulu’s Into the Dark has done a lot of impressive work with a focus on monthly holidays.
Into the Dark has been a great opportunity for emerging filmmakers in the horror genre, and the Blumhouse series has helped some big names break through as well as create big scares. Into the Dark season 1 still needs to find its footing at times, but season 2 shows a healthy growth in its overall approach to horror. Both seasons of the show devote episodes to Christmas, but there’s a superior entry when it comes to Into the Dark season 1, episode 3, Pooka! versus Into the Dark season 2, episode 3, A Nasty Piece of Work. Here's how they stack up.
Both of these Into the Dark installments feature unique angles for how to approach Christmas, but A Nasty Piece of Work has more depth and originality behind it. It tells a twisted story about two employees who are pitted against each in a fatal competition in order to climb higher up of the corporate ladder. It’s chilling, yet grounded in how success-driven society has become, and it’s a premise that’s echoed in other recent horror movies like The Hunt or Ready or Not. Pooka!’s case of lost identity and the blurring of fantasy and reality due to a cuddly Christmas toy has its merits, but it tries too hard to complicate the narrative when it’s not necessary and becomes a bit of a mess by the end.
A Nasty Piece of Work’s specialty is how it creates a frightening moral quandary that plays with how easy it is to corrupt people with the right price and temptations. It’s a story that’s more driven by suspense than outright scares. Pooka! benefits from being directed by Nacho Vigalondo, who brings his signature visual flair to create many overwhelming images that assault the audience. The design behind Pooka itself is fantastic and already gives the movie a strong advantage. As a whole, Pooka! may not succeed, but the effectiveness of the Pooka monster is why it’s the only Into the Dark segment to receive a sequel, Pooka Lives!.
Pooka! and A Nasty Piece of Work are both underdog stories, but Pooka!’s lead, Wilson Clowes (Nyasha Hatendi), becomes so lost in fantasy that it becomes difficult to empathize with his struggle. It’s haunting to watch him transform into a monster, but it feels inevitable. What makes A Nasty Piece of Work so compelling is how it positions Kyle Howard's Ted and Dustin Milligan's Gavin as inverses of each other. Ted continues to do the right thing and is caught in an impossible situation, which resonates with most of the audience. A Nasty Piece of Work showcases the horrors of humanity, not supernatural monsters, yet everyone's characters, including Julian Sands' Steven—who is behind the whole macabre operation—feel like real people as opposed to caricatures.
Pooka! is the flashier of Into the Dark’s two Christmas entries, but it’s a case of style over substance. A Nasty Piece of Work is ultimately the more rewarding experience. It’s a patient movie that respects the audience and doesn’t feel drawn out in the way that many Into the Dark entries do. It instead tells a human story that finds an original angle for a Christmas horror film and speaks to Into the Dark’s larger range, which is crucial if the anthology hopes to continue.
