Adam Scott doesn’t get writer’s block in this great horror film.
After my viewing of the new NEON horror film “Hokum,” I held an elevator open for a fellow critic named Mike, and we talked about our praises for it. We both appreciated how it catered to no fans of jumpscares and blood and gore. The third act doesn’t need the carnage to qualify itself as a horror movie. And plus, some of the best horror movies take place at hotels (“The Shining” being the best example).
Aside from his comedic work on “Parks and Recreation” and “Knocked Up,” Adam Scott can take on various genres. His horror films include “Krampus” and “The Monkey,” but I think “Hokum” might feature his best work in the genre. He plays a celebrated but hapless writer named Ohm Bauman, who travels to Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes, never dreaming that the inn he would be staying at would be like a small version of the Overlook Hotel.
The Honeymoon Suite has been off limits for quite some time, due to a witch residing in it. Even the service bell for that room still rings. At one point, he ends up in a coma and wakes up months later, and wonders what happened to Fiona (Florence Ordesh), the bartender he was chewing the fat with about his upcoming book. He’s told to go home while he still has a face, but he still has to enter the supernatural world to find her.
The movie opens and closes with a sandy desert like something out of “Laurence of Arabia,” as it is part of the story that Ohm is writing. So don’t worry, you didn’t walk into the wrong theater. Given his taste in literature, he might be considering giving it an unhappy ending. He even suggests to Fiona that a film adaptation could give it the happy ending she wants.
One of the scariest things in the film is a TV humanoid rabbit, whose eyes are a little bigger than Jerry Colonna’s, and has a few shocks. And he/it can be seen in the Honeymoon Suite that Ohm enters. That place also provides us with probably the most thrilling use of the dumbwaiter since “Zathura,” and that was a children’s movie. This one literally works on a timely fashion.
“Hokum” is one of the many horror films that reminds us about why they are made in the first place. They play games with our minds, and they speak with a conviction of folklore and belief. And that’s why we have the main protagonist crossing paths with a hermit named Jerry (David Wilmot) and why he acts like he’s never been in a horror movie before. I don’t even think this writer watches movies, but that doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. He’s just pretty rude. That’s all. And you have to give Scott credit for applying his mannerisms into Ohm while taking a different approach to his acting.
The film was written and directed by Damian Mc Carthy, who also made “Caveat” and “Oddity.” His latest entry continues his elevated horror work by allowing Scott to be himself as an actor, embracing his Irish roots, and telling an original horror story. It’s a thoroughly creepy film with great cinematography by Colm Hogan, and goes for no loud “Insidious” ambiance’s, but a real complexity inside. In fact, I don’t even think “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy” is making an impact on audiences, which indicates that they may be smarter than I was. But “Hokum” is the better horror movie, and one of the best of the year.
Time to check in to your room. But when someone tells you not to go into the Honeymoon Suite, you’d better listen.
