Adam Scott delivers an unexpectedly dark and unsympathetic performance in Hokum, a black-comic supernatural horror that delivers efficient jump scares and a gruesome, eccentric narrative. Scott plays Ohm, a successful American writer brooding over the nihilistic ending of his latest novel. Lonely and sliding into alcoholism, he is clearly tormented by unacknowledged personal pain.
A Writer's Retreat to a Remote Irish Hotel
Ohm decides to scatter his dead parents' ashes in the one place they were happy: a run-down hotel in rural Ireland where they spent their honeymoon. He hopes to siphon off some postdated happiness for himself. Upon arriving at the picturesque but faintly disturbing hotel, where he is the only guest, Ohm is shocked to find a dead goat in the car park. The animal had to be culled because it climbed onto vehicles to admire its reflection.
Unpleasant Encounters and a Boarded-Up Suite
Ohm is obnoxious to the hotel staff and to Fiona (Florence Ordesh), the indifferent barmaid who senses his unhappiness. He wonders if his parents stayed in the quaint 'honeymoon suite,' but it is boarded up. The reason: a 400-year-old witch is held captive there.
A Convoluted and Bizarre Narrative
Writer-director Damian McCarthy stretches the amusing premise into a convoluted narrative involving two hospital stays for Ohm. David Wilmot entertainingly plays Jerry, a wacky hermit living in a van in the surrounding woodland, where Ohm's parents once wandered. Jerry enjoys a shroom-based smoothie of his own invention, with predictably chaotic results.
Hokum is in UK and Irish cinemas from 1 May.
