“You know parents are the same,

No matter time nor place,

They don’t understand that us kids,

Are going to make some mistakes,

So to you, all the kids all across the land,

There’s no need to argue,

Parents just don’t understand.”

-DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince “Parents Just Don’t Understand”

Old people suck. I think this was a bumper sticker, or maybe just a regular sticker, or I might be melding it together with the “Mean People Suck” sticker that used to be all over the place. I don’t see that one much anymore. I would guess because everyone just accepts that mean people suck, even though people continue to be mean to each other, so maybe everyone thinks that everyone sucks—which makes sense. Either way, “Old People Suck” is a pretty common sentiment among the younger generation—has been for a long time—and continues to be that way in 2018. Mainly because old people don’t listen, and they kinda suck.

It can be argued that “Old people suck” and “Old people don’t listen” are simplistic and trite lines of thinking. I would imagine that old people would argue against both of those lines of thinking by saying they are trite and simplistic, but I think 2018 is proving that even if “old people suck” is a cliché, it might also be correct– and I say this as someone nearing their mid-30’s. That’s kind of old. I also kind of suck, and I also don’t listen. I’ll dive deeper into my sucking, and not-listening later, because they are qualities that I share with the “older” character in PYEWACKET.

Leah Reyes (Nicole Muñoz) lives at home with her mother (Laurie Holden), as they both try to recover from the recent loss of Leah’s father. Leah deals with this loss by diving into the occult. She practices and studies dark magic with her friends, who have formed a sort of occult book club at their school. Mrs. Reyes on the other hand drinks a lot, and decides that the best path forward is to move out to the woods and into a secluded cabin for a fresh start. Everybody deals with things in their own way I guess, but this (rightfully IMO) pisses Leah off, as her opinion on the move was never taken into consideration, and Mrs. Reyes barrels forward without her input.

After a particularly nasty fight with her mother, Leah–emotional and angry–storms into the woods and uses her knowledge of the occult to bring forth Pyewacket, a demon that proceeds to manifest itself throughout the rest of the film to get revenge on Leah’s mother. Typical teenage rebellion.

Okay, so the summoning of the ancient demon was probably a bit of an overreaction by Leah. That’s fair. But what really sends the entire plot into motion are the actions of Mrs. Reyes. She doesn’t listen to her daughter when making the decision to uproot them from their current living situation. That’s the key moment in pushing her daughter over the edge, and into demon summoning. The whole reason they move is due to Mrs. Reyes inability to get over the loss of her husband, even telling Leah at one point “Moving on is impossible with you around. Every time I look at you, I see your fathers face.” It’s a harsh moment–one that is totally understandable, and completely selfish at the same time.

Mrs. Reyes is a wreck. She drinks too much, and is emotionally on-edge all the time. She’s “all over the place”, a complaint that she directs at her daughter, and one that is lobbed at teenagers in the real world quite a bit. That’s another thing us old people like to do. We say bad things about other people that 9 times-out-of 10 probably could be directed at us as well. To be fair to Mrs. Reyes, she does offer up a compromise to Leah during a scene that takes place after the move, but it’s that scene that really pushes Leah over the edge, as Mrs. Reyes offers to continue taking Leah to her old school, even though the deed has been done. They are moving, and they are doing so without any input from Leah. Leah gets emotional about this and makes a rash, which is something you could also say about Mrs. Reyes decision to move them in the first place.

This type of generational conflict between parents and children is nothing new, but this is the second horror movie that I’ve seen in 2018 to use it as the inciting incident of its plot (the other being MOM AND DAD) . But that’s kind of what’s going on in society right now. The older generation pushes forward on things without any input from younger people—even if it’s something that directly affects the younger generation–and they do it for their own self-interest, self-preservation, or just a lack of desire to confront the issues.

Yeah, I’m talking about current events, and I’m mainly referring to the Parkland shooting and the ensuing protests, but I’m also talking about a university president who can’t be bothered to show up at courthouse a couple miles down the road to listen to the statements of a bunch of young women who were sexually assaulted by a doctor employed by her university . Well, she showed up for like an hour or two, during the weeklong trial, and gave a quick statement lacking in any culpability, or compassion. Many of these women all stated the same thing: they just wanted to someone to listen to them. And in not showing up to listen to them, the president of the university proved their point. That university president ending being forced to step down due to the ensuing outrage over her actions btw.

But yeah, I’m mostly talking about the Parkland students. I am writing this a few days after the “March For Our Lives” demonstrations took place across the United States. Student after student got up and told their story of how gun violence personally affected them, and then predictably, the same tired criticisms were trotted out by those on the other side. Many of the criticisms revolving around youth: They’re too young to know any better. They don’t understand, or they are too naive to recognize how big the system is they are fighting against. Do they even know what they’re protesting? Criticisms from people on the opposite side too stuck in their own ways to listen to anybody with an opposing viewpoint. Especially high school kids.

Proven ghoul, Laura Ingraham, even took to Twitter to taunt one of the survivors of the Parkland shooting. This was a cool, and totally normal thing for a grown-ass adult to do, and was also a bad idea because this kid is smarter than her, and he urged his over 60,000 followers to tweet at her advertisers and call on them to boycott her show. Within 24 hours a bunch of the advertisers announced that they would be pulling their ads from her show. Ingraham later took to twitter to give a half-ass apology. She’s probably not going to lose her job, but she’s going to lose some money, so that’s a little comforting at least.

Here’s the thing that bothers me most: I’ve caught myself thinking some of the same things. That’s how I know that I’m getting old and shitty too! Not the Laura Ingraham stuff–she’s a soulless piece of shit– but some of the other stuff. When I read that the president of Michigan State didn’t show up to the Larry Nassar trial, the first thing that ran through my head was “why would she do that?”. So, I checked to see what possible rationale could be behind doing this, and one of the explanations I saw pertained to insurance reasons. The university has insurers to answer to, and by no-showing the proceedings it might limit the liability on the school’s side, and could help mitigate some of the financial damage that is coming. The first thing that went through my shitty, callous, 33-year-old mind after reading that was “Oh, I guess that makes some sense”. Luckily there is still enough of the non-shitty-33-year-old in me to think in response “Good lord, no. That makes no sense. Act like a human being, you fucking cretin.”

When I look at the demonstrations happening in recent weeks, there is also sadly a part of me that thinks, “This is all well and good, but it’s not gonna change anything. It never does”. That type of thinking sucks, and I hate that it runs through my head. I try to remind myself that these things can change, but most importantly I tell myself to listen. To listen to the stories that other people tell–particularly the young people that are at the center of these horrific stories–because listening to other people’s stories is the way we learn, and that’s the way things will change.

That’s what Mrs. Reyes in PYEWACKET doesn’t do. She doesn’t listen, or at least she doesn’t listen until it’s too late. She never discusses the subject of moving with her daughter, and because she’s the adult in the situation, she is convinced of her own righteousness and moves them. It’s not until after the decision has been made does Mrs. Reyes sit down and talk to her daughter to offer an apology. By that point, it’s already too late and the events that take place in the second half of the film have been set into motion.

Oh yeah, the second half of the film. I didn’t like it as much as the first half. It’s not bad, but it never kicks into that next gear that a slower-paced movie like this needs to kick into as it heads into the climax. I also never really bought into the occult aspect of the movie. Are kids that big into the occult these days? That part rang hollow to me. It seemed like something the director was really into, so he made the high school kids in his movie super into it too. Plus, they are super obsessed with this occult author, and they go to his book signing, and there’s a scene later in the movie where they get the author on facetime or skype and have him drop a ton of exposition about Pyewacket. I don’t know, that stuff was pretty silly. To me, the most interesting stuff in PYEWACKET occurs in the first half, and the horror parts never reach that same level, which is a bummer since it is a horror movie.

PYEWACKET is an okay horror movie, and a decent drama focused on the relationship between a mother and her daughter. Some if it borders on cliché, but a lot of times there are reasons that things become cliché. The morality tale at PYEWACKETS center is its strongest aspect, but that morality tale is not just limited to Leah and the idea of being careful what you wish for. In PYEWACKET you could also extend the morality tale to Mrs. Reyes by saying that you better listen to your kid –actually listen—or they might just conjure a demon to try and kill you. When the movie is at its best, PYEWACKET shows that if you continue to ignore the voices of the younger generation, you do so at your own risk.