Aahana Swrup
Directed by Adam MacDonald, ‘Pyewacket’ is a 2017 horror mystery movie featuring occult rituals and a menacing evil spirit. After her father passes away, Leah Reyes (Nicole Muñoz), an angsty teenager, finds solace in occultist literature and devil imageries. While her mother grieves, she becomes distant and neglectful, creating a rift between herself and her daughter. As a result, Leah grows distant and spiteful of her mother and seeks a solution in the supernatural after a particularly gruesome fight. Performing a dark magic ritual, Leah brings a powerful evil force, Pyewacket, into her world to rid herself of her mother. Soon, however, she realizes the gravity of the nightmare she has unleashed onto her life.
If you’re curious to see what Pyewacket’s presence brings for Leah and what it means for her mother, here is everything you need to know about the ending of ‘Pyewacket.’ SPOILERS AHEAD!
Pyewacket Plot Synopsis
Ever since her father died, Leah Reyes’s home life has become unbearable. Her mother is missing when Leah returns from school and cries behind a closed door when she is at home. As such, Leah starts to resent her stand-offish mother and spends free time with her friends Janice, Aaron, and Rob. Like, Leah, her friends also have complicated relationships with their parents and bond over their mutual love for “Black River, Black Magic,” a supernatural book by an expert. One night, Leah returns home late from a book signing event for the same book, leading to an argument with her mother.
Consequently, when her mother tells Leah that they’re going to pack up their old home and move up north for a fresh start, it invites much contempt from the latter. Eventually, another brutal argument breaks out between the mother-daughter duo, in which Leah’s mother tells her how much she hates the fact that Leah reminds her of her father. Hurt by her mother’s cruel words, Leah makes a rash decision and performs a summoning ritual in the woods near her house. Taking directions from Black River, Black Magic, Leah gathers her mother’s hair and buries it in the woods with a concoction containing her own blood, calling for Pyewacket to come to her world and kill her mother.
At first, nothing happens, and Leah returns back home, where her mother sincerely apologizes to Leah for her words. However, as time passes, Leah starts to get more and more paranoid about someone else’s presence in the house. A few days later, Leah inexplicably wakes up in the woods with a bloody hand and rushes to seek help from her friends.
As a result, Janice comes over for a sleepover to investigate the spot in the woods where Leah performed the ritual to summon Pyewacket. The two friends visit the woods at night but find nothing out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, the next morning, Leah and her mother wake to find Janice hidden away in their car, devastated by something terrifying that happened to her the night before.
Realizing the danger of the situation, Leah decides to find professional help and contacts the Black River, Black Magic author Rowan Dove. Dove believes Leah’s claims and shares information about Pyewacket’s evil nature and ability to shapeshift into anything.
Dove tells Leah in order to send Pyewacket back to its world, Leah has to perform the ritual once again, but in reverse, while asking for forgiveness. When her mother leaves for work the following weekend, Leah collects supplies and returns to the woods. However, she fails to finish the ritual when she sees her mother’s dead body lying among the trees.
Broken at the same sight, Leah calls 911 and reports her mother’s death. Soon, Leah’s mother’s voice calls out to her from the house, making Leah reach out to Aaron for help. Although she gets a text from Aaron about him being outside her gate, once Leah returns home, all she finds is her mother waiting for her inside the house.
Pyewacket Ending: Does Leah’s Mother Die?
Leah brings Pyewacket into her realm with the exact purpose of killing her mother. At the time of the summoning, Leah’s emotions are haywire, and she is grieving not only the loss of her father but also who her mother used to be before her father died. Since her mother’s emotional abandonment, Leah only has her friends as a support system. As such, it brings up ugly feelings when Leah’s mother indirectly takes that away from her life. Therefore, during their argument, when her mother expresses her desire to erase all of Leah, it sparks a similar wish in the latter.
In the heat of the moment, Leah performs the ritual and starts regretting her actions immediately afterward. Over the following days, Leah realizes her mother is only trying her best and wishes to take back her horrible actions. As such, when Leah sees her mother’s dead body in the woods, it breaks her, especially since she’s so close to reversing her original ritual. Later, Leah sees her mother again at the house and realizes it’s the shapeshifting Pyewacket. Although she tries to pretend everything is fine, the charade ends soon, and the Pyewacket follows Leah around the house in its demonic form.
Sometime later, while Leah hides in the attic with her knife, her mother finds her and calms her down. Although Leah’s mother is no longer demonic, Leah suspects her of being the Pyewacket who’s playing mind games with Leah. As a result, late at night, Leah sneaks out of the house and extracts a bucket of gasoline from her mother’s car. With the fuel, Leah sets the Pyewacket on fire alongside the rest of the house.
Aaron is able to save Leah from the burning building, but at the police station, Leah finds a startling truth. The cops couldn’t find anything in the woods where Leah discovered her mother’s dead body. Instead, they only found a burnt human corpse inside the house.
Since Leah summons Pyewacket to kill her mother, the spirit does just that and makes Leah kill her own mother. By showing her the dead body in the forest and later taking the form of her mother, Pyewacket cements the idea in Leah’s head that her mother is dead. Likewise, Leah believes an evil spirit is surrounding her that has the ability to look like her mother. Consequently, in the end, Leah can’t see through her fear and mistakes her mother for Pyewacket, burning her alive.
Who Is Pyewacket?
Pyewacket is a dark spirit from another world who crosses the bridge to the mortal world with Leah’s help. Even though it is the film’s titular character, not much is known about Pyewacket due to its mysterious nature. Throughout the film, we only see it as a menacing silhouette in the dark or as Leah’s mother. Nevertheless, towards the end, Leah and the audience get a glimpse of its actual appearance as a disfigured devilish witch.
Leah is able to bring Pyewacket to life since she firmly believes in its existence and has unwavering faith after reading Dove’s book about it. However, since Pyewacket is summoned for a purpose— to kill Leah’s mother— it is bound to Leah until it can finish the task. Once it completes its mission, Pyewacket will come for Leah and hunt her down.
Dove informs Leah that Pyewacket is an immensely manipulative witch spirit who can take the form of anyone it desires. He warns her that with its shapeshifting skills, Pyewacket will try to manipulate Leah and that she must always be vigilant of the same. Since Pyewacket is such a powerful being, it should have found it incredibly easy to kill Leah’s mother and finish its task.
However, due to its chaotic nature, Pyewacket intentionally strings Leah along and pushes her to the edge. Toward the end, it successfully manages to convince Leah to believe what it wants her to. Although Leah brings Pyewacket to kill her mother, ironically, Pyewacket makes her do its bidding. In a twist of fate, the way Leah kills her mother— by burning her alive— must be something Pyewacket would have happened to it since it’s a witch spirit.
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