Directed By Damian McCarthy
Starring – Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot
The Plot – When novelist Ohm Bauman (Scott) retreats to a remote inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, he is consumed by tales of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite. Disturbing visions and a shocking disappearance forces him to confront dark corners of his past.
Rated R for some violent/disturbing content, and adult language.
POSITIVES
Some directors simply have that unidentifiable x-factor that effortlessly elicits compelling horror to fully engaged audiences, and with McCarthy’s previous film, Oddity, being a flawed but moodily atmospheric slow-burner, and his latest evoking a classic haunted house story, full of thematic darkness and psychological duress, Damian has once more tapped into an uneasy restlessness within subconscious that permeates effectivity in its ability to continuously crawl under your skin, peaking curiosity as a means of the indescribable, in ways that breathe freshly innovative execution into classic concepts. While we’ve seen everything that the movie entails before; with spookily isolated setting, lingering shadows, and surprisingly unpredictable jump scares, it’s the experienced guidance of McCarthy’s direction that materializes these matters so seamlessly smooth to the interpretation of the audience, conjuring this thick essence of ominousness that not only kept me drawn faithfully to the air of sporadic developments, despite its own subdued brand of storytelling that simultaneously values the past and present arcs equally in their integrity to the narrative, but also tangible psychology in the fleshing out of Scott’s Ohm that delves deep into his tortured past, in order to flesh out the coldly condemning shell of a man that we see before us, allowing ample insight into the character’s traumatic past without completely justifying his crude treatment of the movie’s supporting characters, all the while inspiring the kind of imperfectly complex protagonist that lives and revels in that distinct shade of grey where many of us regretfully reside, in terms of flexible morality and irresponsibility, the latter of which believably drive many of the premeditated plot mechanics that drive so many of his questionable actions throughout the film. On the subject of that aforementioned balance of dual timelines, the script (Also from McCarthy) takes some ambitious swings in the form of its implemented exposition of the past appraising an unforeseen value to the present, where the spontaneous edits corresponding between both provide a linear link to extend context to many of the things we’re seeing in the foreground of the narrative that we don’t have answers for, on account of us not experiencing them in real-time, and considering the editing does such a remarkable job of deviating between the effects and causes, without any kind of tedious abruptness to take away from the fluidity of the storytelling, it gives us great appreciation for how many questions that it’s able to resolve without the dire unnecessity of heavy-handed, long-winded exposition dumps to vividly convey them, rewarding the most faithful of audiences with attainable answers that are discernable enough without feeling obviously on-the-nose, especially one such horrifying visual involving a creepy bunny that peaks into the foreground of the narrative, as a result of its traumatic imprint on the past of our protagonist. That seems like a great point to transition over to the frights and thrills of the many horror components of the movie’s execution, such as those pertaining to a prominence of production values that each attain amble time to shine in the perfect crafting that mold each frame into something mesmerizing. From the intricacies of the production designs involving wood-carved decorations and musty furniture, to the spellbinding cinematography from Colm Hogan injecting dim orange and yellow hues to the sedative lighting of hallways, to even Joseph Bishara’s score involving unintelligible whispers and creaking wood that implement spine-tingling dread, there’s an otherworldly feeling to The Billberry Woods Inn that makes this established setting feel like it was frozen in time, almost as a place that feels so artificially perfect that it feels too good to be true, and while none of these vital components are articulated in abrasively overwhelming ways that exceed one over the other, while eviscerating nuance to McCarthy’s meticulous helming, each stir like a palpable ingredient to the disorienting dizziness that defines such an intrepid fear of the unknown, immersing us in the dire dilemma of its seemingly never-ending corridors and choir of ringing bells, the likes of which breed anxiousness to a place valued by rest and relaxation. Aside from McCarthy and the production team working overtime to make this occasion truly memorable, it’s Adam Scott whom most of the movie’s energy and undivided focus is bestowed upon, with the longtime comic actor proving his limitless dimensions with a portrayal that takes him down some darkly devastating avenues of exploration. Scott has always been a natural at conveying an annoyed and unconforming demeanor amongst his character peers, however it’s his facial acting during agonizing familial reflections that is most telling of Scott’s evolutionary magnitude as a dramatic actor, especially without the assistance of an abundance of dialogue to convey his disquieting discourse, leaving him only with increasing fear and momentary panic to surmise the necessary requirement of the character’s valued vulnerability, in turn cementing a memorably expansive turn for Scott that sees him adapting once more to a genre that is unfamiliar to him.
NEGATIVES
While the script objectively pursues answers from a lot of its surmising mysteries that drive audience investment to the engagement, it leaves just as many vital aspects crucially underexplored in the movie’s bigger picture, particularly the lore and backstory of its resident witch, as well as the speculation surrounding hotel management, that requires a bit of audience interpretation to coherently fill in the blanks. It’s easy to understand and even applaud that McCarthy’s approach to so much speculative ambiguity serves to boost the ages old sentiment of the fear of the unknown being the scariest thing that screen can properly muster, however when it comes to logical setups and overlooked character motivations, it leaves slightly more to be desired in understanding even more of the extensive past that the script pursues so determinedly, where the supernatural component of the movie’s creativity might just be the single least interesting aspect in a movie that revolves around it so gravitationally. For my money, a 96-minute runtime is great at maintaining the persistent pacing of the storytelling, with so little excessive lagging throughout, but it doesn’t allow enough opportunity for the script to pursue the many tacked-on aspects as a means of materializing impact to its inclusion towards the plot, leaving it one of the few unfulfilled components that detracted significantly from this movie reinventing the wheel with regards to its haunted house familiarity. Another one of those sacrificed aspects pertained to the abridged emotionality that the script depended so heavily upon during the movie’s climax, underscored by its lack of pursuit throughout towards Ohm’s character arc, which goes abandoned as quickly and abruptly as the movie’s midway point. Once a certain big reveal takes shape towards justifying Ohm’s counterproductive personality among his peers, there’s no semblance of expansive furthering to gage a bigger registering towards the empathetic outlining that could sprung a much grander set of stakes continuously boiling to the movie’s touchingly sentimental ending, leaving its gradual shift towards dramatically wrenching feeling materialistically arbitrary, on account of the magnitude of ambition that the script eventually feels tediously overwhelmed by, and one that it unfortunately takes for granted during the climactic moments that nearly come to define it, without completely detracting from the entertaining appreciation of its resolution.
OVERALL
Hokum is a viscerally gripping and atmospherically intoxicating haunted house story that doesn’t completely reinvent the wheel with the supernatural subgenre, but rather greases the conductive gears of Damian McCarthy’s mechanical direction performing at peak level. Despite some situational shortcomings in the expanse of its underutilized emotionality undercutting the stinging sentiment of its meaningful climax, there’s enough uncertainty in the ambiguity of the bizarre imagery and pieced-together storytelling to ignite the curiosity of its thrill-seeking audience, surmising dread-inducing frights and an anxiously antagonized performance from Adam Scott, that bites voraciously and chews slowly, combining gothic horror and folkloric lore towards for something enigmatically endearing.
My Grade: 7.7 or B+