REVIEW: THE UNBINDING

The Hellier Team does it again.

The Unbinding is the new full-length documentary by the Planet Weird crew that brought us the magick of Hellier — and after having watched it last night, I can safely say “they did it again”.

Greg and Dana Newkirk, alongside Tyler Strand and Jason Gowin, take us through a journey that redefines once and for all the way the occult and the paranormal should be presented on screen to the masses.

It’s not only carefully produced (thanks also to the invaluable aid of Connor Randall) or masterfully shot — we were expecting fireworks from Karl Pfeiffer, but he went above and beyond this time.

It’s the way it tells the tale of what seems to be a typical haunted object, the kind that the countless “ghost bros” shows of the past ten or so years have pushed in our faces.

It treats it with the respect and reverence it deserves. It doesn’t shy away from reminding us that even fear has its rightful place when dealing with the unknown and that the Other can and will appear to us as monstrous when we aren’t ready for it.

The answer? It is, of course, to become ready. To allow for magick to seep into our lives. To become beacons for the secret calls from the other side. To learn to listen to it instead of shouting over them.

It’s only by doing all these things that we will finally learn how beautifully complex and yet incredibly alluring the Universe truly is.

Be ready to shed a tear or two.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ , Many Spirits.

Now that you read my thoughts let’s dive a little into spoiler territory. If you haven’t watched it yet, I beg you to stop reading now and then come back once you’ve done it.

Alright.

3…

2…

1…

A day or two after the movie debuted to huge acclaim on every streaming platform, a couple of folks took it to Twitter — or rather X: never a rebrand was more appropriately named, given how it’s basically 4chan for the masses — to share their grievances.

Apparently, the Newkirks did it again, indeed.

Only that what they did was to allegedly showcase a far-right, white supremacist trope in their movie. Fans of Hellier will remember this happened back in the series with The Rebirth Of Pan book, penned by Jim Brandon, aka neonazi William Grimstad.

I am not going to detail how Greg, Dana and their team spent the last few years making it absolutely crystal clear that it was a huge oversight on their part. At the time, they simply had no clues that a weird obscure book was written under a pen name by a dude who also happened to be a super obscure white supremacist.

So the Hellier Team did the right thing. They acknowledged their error and then spent the next 3 years publicly and vocally disavowing ANY kind of far-right ideology and creating an inclusive and progressive community focused on the mantra of Curiosity Over Fear.

But of course, when the pitchfork comes, no amount of actual evidence is ever enough. I know a thing or two about that.

What is interesting to me is to realise who are the people behind this attack on the movie. I am not going to post links because none of these folks needs any showcasing, but I did some digging, and with one exception (Micheal M. Hughes, with whom Greg discussed directly on Twitter), every other of the original people stirring this shit do not only have their own podcasts (almost like they wanted to ragefarm to attract attention on those) but also are all 100% the types that think everyone is a CIA psyop.

Before attacking the movie, they spent the last few months shitting over Dave Grusch and the UFO/UAP Disclosure. Now, that could well be a psyop, but the way they treated it was to be completely dismissive from the go and then going on crazy “connecting the dots/gotcha” rants.

It’s brain rot, I have no other way of describing it. This is the kind of paranoia that is actually exploited by the far right to gain entry into the paranormal/occult/woo communities.

This is why conspiracy theory content is so prominent and so easy to monetise. Because it feeds on rage and righteousness, exactly like ultra-reactionary thinking does.

Greg came out with a clear statement, and on top of that, they are also editing the movie to remove the “incriminating” shot.

Will this be enough for those who see bad faith everywhere?

Answers on a postcard.