Hokum
- 14 minutes ago
- 3 min read
"Go Home....while you still look like your passport picture....."
Adam Scott serves up a great dramatic performance in Damian McCarthy's latest horror mood piece, HOKUM.
Scott plays writer Ohm Bauman, who's having trouble wrapping up his famous novel trilogy. We see the current state of the book's ending play out in a bright, color splashed prologue that takes his two characters to a tipping point in the middle of a vast desert.
The scene plays as a powerful counterpoint to the wet, dreary landscape and muted colors of the Irish Inn where Bauman has settled in to try and solve his writer's block.
The inn he's chosen has deeper meaning, as it's where his beloved late Mom and decidedly less supportive deceased Father spent their honeymoon.
If Bauman's looking for the romance of the location to inspire him, he's wandered into the wrong locale, with eccentric locals filling every frame.
Florence Ordesh is Fiona, the Inn's bartender/staff member who seems to see past the grumpy, "I just want to be left alone" vibe that the writer spews in every direction.
David Wilmot is Jerry, a local vagrant and a staple at both the hotel and the murky woods that surround it. He and Ohm bond after Jerry sees the writer spreading his Mother's ashes carefully around a massive redwood. Their surprise conversation is a natural, intriguing sequence that sets the tone.
Peter Coonan plays Mal, the hotel's manager who's got his hands full managing everything from the locals and the wildlife to his staff. The property seems to sprawl downward and outward in a myriad of confusing and mysterious directions.
Will O'Connell (Game of Thrones) is perfectly cast as Alby, the elevator operator and doorman who knows every dark nook and cranny of the old, stone built Inn. Every time the film looks down the hallway at his elevator, it conjures up a bit more dread.
Scott is very good as Ohm. He conveys a lot of internal torment as his world closes in around him, keeping people at bay with every alienating, rude comment that comes to mind. It's a good thing that the Inn doesn't seem to have many guests, it's mostly the staff that he tries to keep beyond arm length.
Fiona and Ohm begin to bond over storytelling and life, leading to a devastating plot point that I saw coming with the same sense of dread as Fiona. It kicks off a series of Halloween night events at the Inn that spin the story into a missing person mystery worthy of Dateline, if Dateline was made by George Romero & Stephen KIng.
Joseph Bishara (The Conjuring) crafts a creepy, twisting music score that heightens the tension as Colm Hogan's camera pulls you deeper down dumb waiter shafts and black corridors.
It seems the Honeymoon Suite has been locked up for many years.
So why does the old bell system at the front desk keep ringing from someone pulling it in that room?
Are the spooks at the Inn a mass delusion of local folklore and some mushrooms from the wet ground of that forest next door?
Writer/Director Damian McCarthy serves up another fine serving of horror folklore, following up his interesting 2024 entry, "Oddity", which shares similar themes of solitude, isolation and death. McCarthy knows how to build suspense and exactly how to pull you, the viewer, around corners and hallways that you instinctively want to avoid.
McCarthy and Scott are a clever match.
The word Hokum means "a device used by showmen to evoke a desired audience response", or "pretentious nonsense."
Thanks to McCarthy and Scott, the film is much more the former than the latter, and that desired response is escalating horror, which they serve up in smooth style.
HOKUM gets a solid B.
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