Hokum Review: Adam Scott In So-So Irish Haunted Hotel Horror
hokum, Damian McCarthy’s Irish-set haunted-hotel film starring Adam Scott, places a successful American novelist in a remote inn where a witch in the honeymoon suite and a string of unsettling visions force him to confront his past. The film screened in the SXSW Midnighter strand and is slated for release on May 1.
Hokum Debuts At SXSW And Heads For May 1 Release
The film played at the SXSW Film Festival under the Midnighter programming and is scheduled to open in cinemas on May 1. It is presented as a R-rated feature running 1 hour 41 minutes. Distribution for the film is set for a May release window.
Plot, Tone And Performances
Adam Scott plays Ohm Bauman, a best-selling novelist wrestling with the epilogue of his Conquistador Trilogy. After sensing a presence while working late, Ohm abruptly travels to Ireland to scatter his long-deceased parents’ ashes at an inn where they once stayed. The photograph that draws him to the property features his mother leaning against a tree identified as “the big redwood, ” a clue tied to the emotional core of his trip.
The Billberry Woods Hotel is peopled by a cast of characters who set the film’s uneasy tone: a gruff handyman, a prickly owner who tells children stories of an evil crone, a talkative bellhop with writerly ambitions, a terse front-desk clerk and a concerned bartender whose intervention prevents a near-tragedy. Other cast members include performers in roles that range from a forest-dwelling eccentric to anachronistic cameo beats that punctuate the story.
Visual Hooks And Script Critiques
The film opens with a striking, seemingly out-of-place desert sequence featuring a figure in conquistador armor clutching an ancient parchment. That framing device yields some payoff late in the story, most notably a redemptive strand for a troubled character and an arc of self-forgiveness. There are also moments of memorable atmosphere in the enchanted woodlands and in the haunted-hotel setting.
At the same time, the script has been described as diffuse, piling on story points, symbols and portent without fully elucidating the central mystery of the vengeful ghost in the honeymoon suite. Several threads are left loose, and critics note that important backstory about the crone remains underexplained, weakening the emotional and supernatural stakes. One reviewer even uses the term hag hokum to capture the film’s mix of charm and frustration.
What To Expect And Close
Viewers can expect a blend of compact horror set pieces, an Irish-hotel atmosphere and a protagonist pushed into confronting dark corners of his past. The film balances unsettling imagery and a few satisfying narrative resolutions with an overarching script that some find not fully cohesive. The theatrical release on May 1 will offer a wider audience the chance to weigh the film’s visual strengths against the critiques of its storytelling.
