Pyewacket

 Here's some trivia for you: Pyewacket was the name 'extracted' from a poor woman as one of her familiars by the self-proclaimed witchfinder general (and all-round sleazebag) Matthew Hopkins. I was pretty proud to have caught the reference, but of course it's the third google entry when you search for the name, right under the two entries for this film. You can't one-up the internet.

 Pywacket (film) is a very solid indie Canadian horror/drama about a teenager who summons a demon in a fit of rage. Yeah, that always works out.
 The teenager is Leah (Nicole Muñoz), a goth/metal girl whose backpack sports Carach Angren, HIM and Ministry patches - way to cover all bases! She's into the occult, because of course she is, and one early outing in the movie with her friends is to a book signing by some sort of paranormal expert who may or may not provide demon-wrangling counselling later on. They later discuss the book in an appropriately pretentious manner.
 I actually really liked the movie's portrayal of Leah and her friends: They listen to poppy techno and Lords of the New Church - it might not be very authentic (you'd think at that age they'd be a lot more self-conscious about what they listen to), but it underlines that they're well adjusted and basically seem like happy kids. There's no bullying from the outside, they (well, with one exception) genuinely care about each other and there's only the mildest of internecine drama, at least until the supernatural intrudes.
 Canadian cliques seem to be a lot more wholesome than their American counterparts.

 But while her social life is pretty good, Leah is Going Through Shit. Her dad's died recently, and her mother (Laurie Holden) is introduced as a wreck, drinking and crying all the time. I was a bit worried about that at the beginning, as she screeches into the film like a belligerent, one-note harridan, but writer/director Adam MacDonald wisely eases back on confrontation, letting Leah's character deal with her in a much calmer manner than you'd expect from a movie teen.
 The drama gets a tiny bit strident at times, but it's well observed and shows a lot of humanity.

 So Leah seems to be holding things together... until her mom drops the bomb: she's sold the house, and they're moving to a house in the middle of nowhere a two hour's drive away.
 After a few more confrontations with her mother, Leah has enough, digs up her occult manuals and performs a (pretty cool) ritual that's somewhere between Wicca and the lesser key of Solomon to call upon an entity named Pyewacket to kill her mom.

 And then... not a lot continues to happen. There's a couple of effectively creepy scenes as... something makes itself known, but the most important development is that Leah's mom, mortified by some of the things she's said (and worried her daughter is doing self-harm due to her ritual injury) scales back on the aggression and they manage to patch up the relationship. Oops!

 There's some scares, of course, including an excellent incident with Leah's BFF (Chloe Rose), but this is an extremely slow burn, a very simple story that prioritizes drama over supernatural mayhem until the very last fifteen minutes. And that's fine, because the characters are great, the naturalistic script still finds  the time to imply a sense of creepy menace off in the wings, and Muñoz easily carries the film with a very sensitive, internal performance. And yeah, it does work its way to a memorably evil ending. Don't fuck with demons, y'all.

 The filmmaking is great, with a lot of handheld camera work that complements the material well - and at one point a cool Evil Dead forest flyby to imply whatever was woken has definitely not gone back to sleep. The scenery is fantastic, all autumnal Canadian forests, giving the film a naturally limited palette.

 I'm not a fan of the trope that the protagonist got into the occult because her dad died - couldn't she just think it's cool, like 99% of nerds everywhere? But if that's one of your biggest complaints in a movie, it counts as a stealth compliment. I also immediately assumed Leah and her friends were on the more adult side of the teen years, and the script works a lot better if you tweak that down until they're fifteen or so. Despite the casting, it's an easy mental adjustment to make.

 Niggles aside, this one's pretty good. Just know that it's more on the quiet side than the trailer lets on.