The Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy, in frequent together with his style colleague Osgood Perkins, likes to seed acquainted horror setups with moments of ludicrousness that destabilize his scares and discombobulate his viewers. Little or no in his films will be taken at face worth — not even their titles, which announce themselves with winking humility.
“Hokum,” McCarthy’s third and most completed function, continues this custom. Set nearly completely in a creaky Irish lodge surrounded by woodland, this efficient people horror introduces Ohm Bauman (a wonderfully solid Adam Scott), a cranky, depressed novelist and sure alcoholic. Ohm — whose title suggests a Zen-like angle its proprietor clearly doesn’t possess — is struggling to complete his trilogy on the conquistadors, and has come to the lodge the place his dad and mom as soon as honeymooned to scatter their ashes beneath his mom’s favourite tree.
Nonetheless haunted by the violent dissolution of his household when he was a baby, Ohm has little persistence for the lodge’s many peculiarities. These embrace a gabby bellboy and aspiring author (Will O’Connell) who will quickly remorse pestering Ohm for profession recommendation; a pleasant eccentric named Jerry (David Wilmot), who lives in a van within the forest fortunately glugging a selfmade potion of magic mushrooms in goats’ milk; and a passel of narcissistic goats who preserve leaping on visitors’ vehicles to admire themselves within the paintwork — or so says the lodge handyman (Michael Patric) who enjoys taking pictures the offenders together with his ever-present crossbow. As a bonus, there’s a witch patrolling the lodge’s now-sealed honeymoon suite — the fetid location the place Ohm’s overstuffed psychological baggage will finally be unpacked.
Reveling in misdirection and a teasing duality — Jerry initially presents as each honest helper and loony hindrance — “Hokum” earnings from Colm Hogan’s insinuating digicam because it noses by means of gloomy corridors and a terrifying dumbwaiter shaft, hinting at what lurks on the opposite aspect of the body. A splendidly spooky manufacturing design (by Til Frohlich) braces the ominous environment as Ohm searches for a lacking lodge worker (Florence Ordesh) whereas battling demons of each the corporeal and ethereal varieties. A stunning ending to the primary act derails our expectations and opens the door for a number of interpretations of what follows: Is Ohm grappling with the supernatural, or hallucinating a option to purge his trauma and overcome his author’s block? Or is one thing much more sinister occurring?
I’m not telling, and neither is McCarthy, whose sneaky script appears particularly suited to Scott’s barely shocked performing fashion and a line supply that leans naturally towards snark. Ohm isn’t merely disagreeable, he will be merciless; but, not like many horror films, “Hokum” hews nearer to hope than cynicism, suggesting that we may all profit from laying down our burdens. This cheeky method to the uncanny is one in every of McCarthy’s signatures, permitting him to tweak his setups in methods that may flip gasps into giggles. When you requested him, he would most likely say that both was the right response.
Hokum
Rated R for distressing deaths and a disturbed spirit. Working time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters.