Perhaps the vicar was just clearing his throat at his Christening, but anyway it's author "Ohm" (Adam Scott) who is about to conclude the final instalment of his legendary "Conquistador" trilogy when he is reminded that he still has the ashes of his parents in a cupboard, alongside a photograph of his mum leaning against a giant tree. He decides that the best place for them to rest is under that very tree, so he sets off to Ireland and a remote country hotel. His arrival gives him (and us) an idea of just how quirky this place is, and the fact that he's a bit attitudinal suggests the trip isn'…
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It struggles to build tension and meanders at times, but this is not a bad movie. I get a very similar vibe to 1408, which came out in 2007, and Grave Encounters, especially the first one. The casting here is good and carries a lot of the movie, but the pacing is a bit slow and it's difficult to feel for the protagonist, which means that the tension doesn't quite build the way it should.
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I must have a short attention span today because 10 minutes in and... yeah, I'm bored.
I'll revisit this some other day when I'm not frustrated out of my skull at everything and everyone.
BUT ALSO, [SPOILERS]:
Did he really go from hallucinating a creepy old woman in his house twice, to nonchalantly playing with a gun that is implied to be connected to his parent's death? Maybe the creepy old woman was mommy dearest.
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The Irish woods are dark and deep in everything Damian McCarthy has written and directed, following a terrifying tradition of depicting isolated homes, and buildings -- possessing terrible secrets, curses, and presences. Natch, the Irish Tourism Board may ask McCarthy to start setting his films elsewhere!
From **CAVEAT** to **ODDITY**, and now **HOKUM**, McCarthy succeeds presenting unnerving atmosphere for his protagonists -- especially for those who have it coming.
In **HOKUM**, Adam Scott plays a troubled, misanthropic author Ohm Bauman, an American who makes a pilgrimage to an isolat…
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This is a nice little horror movie set around halloween time. It stars adam scott as this author who is trying to complete the final book in a trilogy but has writers block. He travels to an old hotel in ireland where his parents had their honeymoon years ago to spread their ashes. While there he is quite rude with people even burning the bellboys hand with a hot spoon after the bellboy explains he is a fan of his and an aspiring writer who wants him to review his manuscript. Theres some twists and turns and overall i liked the direction and adam scotts acting was solid. I reccomend watching i…
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*Hokum* has a rather irritating problem: some of its best ideas seem to belong to films it never actually gets around to making.
Damian McCarthy’s remote Irish hotel gives us a haunted honeymoon suite, a huge buried cellar, a local witch, chalk sigils, protective circles, psychedelic mushrooms, a missing woman and a novelist carrying some very substantial parental baggage. Any two of those might comfortably sustain a horror film. *Hokum* keeps introducing another one.
What it does extraordinarily well is frighten you. Faces appear from darkness, figures materialise behind Owen Bauman’s s…
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**Cheap jumpscares: the lazy way out**
This is yet another prime example of the damage Shyamalan has inflicted on contemporary, supernatural-based cinema and plot-driven horror. Damian McCarthy has once again resorted to involuntary physiological reactions triggered by auditory overexposure. It is a bargain-bin technique that dilutes any chance of genuine suspense by drowning out the visual experience with abrupt volume spikes and sudden chords—designed solely to startle the audience through mundane, utterly played-out stimuli. In other words, what they call "horror" these days. Instead of …
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