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New Horror Film Hokum Goes Too Far and Not Far Enough
Adam Scott plays a writer whose grief and guilt get lost in a plot that piles on witches, ghosts and a haunted hotel, critics say.
- Horror film Hokum, starring Adam Scott, opens in theaters Friday, May 1, with Scott portraying Ohm Bauman, an American novelist who retreats to a secluded Irish hotel to scatter his parents' ashes.
- Director Damian McCarthy sets the story in a damp, isolated hotel steeped in folklore, where Bauman's emotional journey darkens after a bartender named Fiona disappears, urging him to investigate loose ends.
- The film balances a haunted honeymoon suite kept locked by the hotel's owner and folklore about a witch in the woods, though critics note the plot becomes overstuffed with unrelated supernatural visions and confusing geography.
- Scott anchors the production with a performance of prickly restraint, portraying Bauman as a detestable character who frequently insults hotel staff, creating tension throughout the narrative's uneven execution.
- While Hokum struggles to integrate disparate supernatural and murder mystery elements, the Neon release demonstrates McCarthy's flair for lingering dread, though the film ultimately fails to weave its competing themes coherently.
16 Articles
16 Articles
New Horror Film Hokum Goes Too Far and Not Far Enough
Adam Scott is known for prickly, unlikable characters. You see those qualities in the popular TV series Severance, or comedies like Step Brothers. But despite his resistance to charisma and charm, he brings something human and recognizable to the roles he plays—often a snobby riff on the everyman, someone who harbors the delusion that his imagined superiority affords him special treatment. In that sense, Scott’s character in the new horror film …
Revealed with the series "Severance", the Californian actor does wonders in "Hokum". From LA, he returns to his actor's journey and to the filming where he was isolated for three weeks.
Hokum, Starring Adam Scott, Is a Horror Salad With Too Many Ingredients
Hokum hits theaters on May 1.Damian McCarthy’s Hokum throws a lot at the wall to see what sticks; unfortunately, little of it does. This movie is part Irish folklore, part murder mystery, part Stephen King riff (by way of a troubled writer at a haunted hotel), and a few other things thrown in for good measure. All of these come wrapped in a distant, haphazard aesthetic approach that robs the film of its tension and scares, resulting in too much …
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