Hokum

In the satisfying new horror movie Hokum, Adam Scott plays a misanthropic writer who takes his parents' ashes to the lonely Irish inn where they honeymooned many years ago. There’s just a few things dampening his stay: surly staff, a local eccentric and a witch haunting the hotel. Hokum was directed by Damian McCarthy, known for making similarly spooky films like Caveat and Oddity. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/letterboxd.com/nprpopculture http://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour https://plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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  Adam Scott started out playing jerks in movies like Step Brothers and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but on TV, he's generally a nice guy. I think Party Down, Parks and Rec, and most famously, Severance. But in the legit spooky new horror film, Hocum, he's back squarely in deep bag territory, playing a nasty embittered writer who stays in a haunted Irish inn while his past and some ghosts, maybe even a witch, catches up with him. I'm Glen Weldon, and we're talking about Hocum on this episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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  Joining me today is Jordan Cruciola. She's a writer and producer and the host of the podcast Feeling Seen on Maximum Fun. Hey, Jordan.

• 1:59Speaker 03

  Hello. Thank you so much for having me back.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Of course. Also with us is Monica Castillo, film critic for the AV Club. First time I've gotten to say that. Welcome back, Monica, and congrats on the new gig. Woo! Thank you. So, so glad to be here. Great to have you. So, in Hocum, Adam Scott is a misanthropic writer who takes his parents' ashes to the lonely Irish inn where they honeymooned many years ago. The place is kind of shabby, but you can't say it isn't steeped in atmosphere. Between the surly staff and a local eccentric, there's even the legend of a local witch who haunts the honeymoon suite his parents stayed in. Said suite has been locked for years, and it would be a very bad idea for anyone to get any ideas about going in there, especially once the inn closes for the season. You perhaps see where this is going. Hokum is in theaters

• 2:46Speaker 01

  now. Jordan, kick us off. What's going on? What'd you think?

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Really, really solid spooky movie. This, I really hope people, if they get the chance, if it's around them, that they see this one in theaters. Obviously, horror is event cinema. It's always kind of best experience in a theater, hopefully with people who you can get scared around. But this one really, like, you will benefit from a surround sound setting. And truly, Adam Scott is so unlikable.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  To his core unlikable in this, almost an audaciously unlikable performance, I would say. And I was incredibly impressed. Normally, I have a hard time really caring about an unlikable guy in a movie.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  But he's so genuinely, like you said, misanthropic and dispirited. And it really, his emotional, like, rot and sadness seems so deep that it's like, this man is carrying the scars of a thousand small cuts.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  And when you come to understand more of why he is the way he is, it truly earns its reveal. This movie earns its reveals, I would say. Throughout, it makes a, like, essentially, quote-unquote, "single-location horror movie" feel really dynamic. The space feels really alive the whole time. Really complete haunted house modified movie.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And Jordan, I want to pick up on something you just said, like, see this in the theater, because if you see this thing at home with the glare on the screen, you will not see this movie.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  This movie is steeped in darkness, very physical darkness. You need to see this in a darkened theater.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  You will need a serious home AV setup.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  To compensate for what you would be risking with a flat panel Chinese screen.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Okay, Monica, what'd you make of it?

• 4:24Speaker 04

  Oh, I also had tons of tons of fun. I had the benefit of seeing it with some friends also in a, in a movie theater that was properly dark and surround sound. So you're just immersed in that creepy audio soundscape that Damian McCarthy pulls together.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  The writer-director, yep.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  The writer-director, Damian McCarthy, who I was introduced to with his previous film, Oddity. And he pulls a lot of what he's been working with, with Oddity and his first film, Caveat. And now this feels like another, like, extra build on. And it's just, like, so rich and atmospheric and really rewards its reveals. I agree with Jordan there. But it also, I want to also give a shout out to Colm Holgan, who's the cinematographer for Holcam, who also was the cinematographer for Oddity. The two of them really know what they're doing with the dark. It's been a long time since I felt like a horror movie has really just, like, plunged me into darkness. And it doesn't look murky or muddy

• 5:21Speaker 04

  or gross. It's actually properly spooky dark. I'm scared. I can't see anything. And then all of a sudden, boom, there's something that looks like Pazuzu's face in front of me, and it freaks me out. It actually really, really works. And I think it's the combination of those two reuniting that really pulls that off.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I, I, I'm just gonna echo what y'all said. Like, I dug this. I'm getting into folk horror lately, and this, boy, that scratches that itch. Like,

• 5:44Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Gimme a witch in the woods. Gimme a creepy hotel. Gimme dead goats. Sure, why not?

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Why not?

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Gimme that old man in the lobby when he gets to the hotel scaring the local children.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Did you pick up on this book of Irish folktales that looks so brand spanking new? It was like,

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Fresh pressing.

• 6:03Speaker 04

  Passed down through the generations without a scratch.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Published by Plot Convenience Limited, an imprint of, obviously, a prop publishers. I, I thought this really worked. It's giving you, to your point, it's like, it's serving up that nightmare stuff. Something is coming for you in the darkness. Footsteps are getting closer. Something is scrabbling at the door. Where I'm gonna disagree with you about the reveals is like, I thought that stuff, the bones of this was so strong that I don't think I needed the Adam Scott trauma backstory. I never think we need a trauma backstory, but I get that's 2026 and that's how we do horror nowadays. I just have to get through it if I'm watching a streaming series.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  You just wanted him to be a true jerk of a person. Inexplicable, context-free. This guy sucks.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Look, if you're making a streaming series, there has to be a flashback episode. If you're making a horror movie in 2026, there has to be, your hero has to have trauma. Who am I to argue with a supercut of Jimmy Lee Curtis saying, "Trauma, trauma, trauma."

• 6:58Speaker 04

  Trauma, trauma, trauma. I was gonna say, I think there's a fair amount of guilt in here that I haven't seen as much with all of the trauma horror movies of late.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  That's a good point.

• 7:07Speaker 04

  Where it's like, oh no, he's really feeling something else here and it's darker and it's deeper. And like, I was okay with following down that thread.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I would definitely recommend this to folks who want a good old fashioned spooky scary. You get what it says in the tin. Maybe we'll talk about this. I have no idea why this is coming out in May. This is feels like a perfect October release. It's set at Halloween.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  This is October? If anything has ever been October.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  Look, not everyone's built for sunlight. Some of us actually need this.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  You're speaking my language. Without the trauma stuff though, guys, like without the trauma stuff, it's a great scary movie. With it, it just, it sloshes into melodrama. It sloshes into melatrauma. Is that a thing? It is not.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  Melatrauma? We're making it a thing now.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  But that speaks to something that you both touched on. Like, I did like that Scott is not playing just a jerk. They double down. He's not just a grump and irascible curmudgeon. He physically injures someone.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  He hurts someone in like a shocking way.

• 8:03Speaker 04

  Super big jerk.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  That is not surliness. That is sociopathy. That is real. That raises the stakes in a big way, in a way that I'm not entirely sure the movie's in control of because that really risks, what you mentioned, Jordan, me not giving a crap about what happens to this guy.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  It's gonna depend on the person, but like, I think the movie pulls it out. But if people talked about it, there was like, I was alienated by how much I didn't like that guy. I'd be like, I get where you're coming from. It feels like something just an American director couldn't do. Just a cultural. Understanding and accept, like, there's even a moment where he's being rude to a member of the hotel staff. He's being like such a jerk looking for his room in the hotel, and he's totally lost. And she's like, hey, can I help you? And he's like, yeah, I can't find this stupid room, like some version of that. And she's like, great, you can find it yourself. That's not an interaction that you would have with an American service person in a hotel. But like, there's a cultural understanding of this kind of like, give as good as you get, sort of reciprocal, like, all right, if you, if you take a punch at

• 9:00Speaker 03

  me, I'm gonna take a punch at you, kind of thing, where I feel like it makes the movie, it's speaking in a sort of language of darkness that I don't think the American cultural sensibility actually does adeptly. And in this context, like, in the context of horror, like, we need a little bit more, we need a little more sensation if we're gonna do that. Like, we need, I am your mother. Like, we need a Toni Collette performance to kind of come with that, as opposed to like, dry, droll Adam Scott. And I appreciate the palate cleanser, even if I don't need it all the time, of what Damien McCarthy could do, even in, because Oddity, too, it's a bit of an impenetrable movie with its characters, and you have this strange, inscrutable figure that's sort of the driving action for the terror in it.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  And he does a good job with strange, inscrutable figures, I would say, Damien McCarthy.

• 9:46Speaker 04

  Oh, he really leans into it.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's, let's unpack that a little bit, because I have not seen either Oddity or Caveat. I think if folks listening haven't, talk to me about the through line here. What do you pick up? Because I'm gonna definitely go back and revisit these, because I like this movie so much. So what am I gonna find if I go back and see those other two films that I found here?

• 10:03Speaker 04

  I think you'll really be rewarded, because it's also a single location, can't escape, sort of like-

• 10:08Speaker 03

  An interesting location. And I remember thinking so much, watching Oddity in particular, was like, God, what a place. Like, what a home to set this in. So, yeah, really dynamic, sad ex places.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, rural, sort of bucolic, almost idyllic sides of Ireland, where you think this would be a great, and a postcard, and you kind of see that in Hokum. And then it turns out, oh, actually, isolation might be a trap.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. The tourist industry had nothing to do with this movie.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  There's also some like really interesting through lines with like the motif of like rabbits and like really creepy tchotchkes. I was intrigued to find out that Damien McCarthy had a background as an electrician at one point, like he worked with his dad through there. So there's like some really interesting trick things of like, one thing causes this other thing over there that kind of almost felt Buster Keaton-esque. It's like the ghost house kind of setup and it works. It works here really, really well.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's some intercom stuff in this as well. That's electronic. I think there's just some really good, just on a plot level, script level, there's some really good characterizing stuff here. He scatters his mother's ashes very carefully, but he tosses his dad's ashes to the wind. That is such

• 11:15Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  an economical touch. Like, he's also, I think he's meant to be a really lousy writer because no good writer is going to tell a bartender the plot of their novel that they just finished. I don't care how many Irish whiskies he's had. The idea is that the trauma backstory explains why he is such a jerk. I don't know. If that were true, and I think if the movie had some confidence that that were so, we wouldn't have introduced a character who's even worse than he is. And I feel like the movie does that because it's not sure, right?

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I feel like you have to. If someone's not worse than him, then is he responsible for everything that's happening in this hotel?

• 11:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  What you were just mentioning about like the really elegant way that characters just, characters reveal through this without like so much explaining it to you. But like, obviously, we know this is a sad, upset guy. He's carrying some stuff around. But like, even when he gets to the hotel, he encounters, as you mentioned, the dead goat. He encounters the manager of the hotel, like resolving an issue with a dead goat right in front of the front door of this hotel. And he's like, you couldn't shoo it away? You couldn't ask it to leave? He's irritated at this notion that like you had to just kill this goat? That was like you had no other creative problem solving? And then he turns around and he's having a conversation with probably the most like one dimensionally nice guy in

• 12:34Speaker 03

  the entire movie and hurts him in a way that is so calculated and like shocking as it happens that you're like, this is a horrible person we're dealing with. And yet, the ways, the moments where you can feel him being moved, like when the old man in the lobby is being, kind of terrorizing the kids with an old spooky story, he's like, "Hey, go find your parents, leave the kids alone."

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  You can feel he even has limits, even in moments where it feels like a limit should stop his own personal misanthropy, it doesn't. I thought that was really well handled.

• 13:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, I really had fun with that, sort of blurring of the lines. But I also think we needed some sort of an inciting, like, mystery to get us to that point in the mystery, where things just get deeper and deeper and, like, involves him in a different way than when he first, like, kind of strolls in, so entitled, very much the pompous American tourist. So then, it has a complete different shift. And that's what keeps you guessing.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we can't talk about how this movie resolves, but it does resolve in a way that, I mean, this is, this is the danger with, I don't know, ghost stories, horror, like, mysteries are always more fun than solutions, you know?

• 13:39Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Metaphor, beats, allegory. I think when things kind of chime against each other, they resonate with each other, instead of they kind of line up. And there's an effort at the very, very end to kind of line things up that I don't think the movie even wants to commit to. I think that's, that's a fake out.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  (laughing)

• 13:53Speaker 01

  I, I don't know. My sense that this trauma nonsense is a recent phenomenon, I was thinking about it. I don't think it is, right? Horror works on a metaphorical level, it always has. Dracula means sex, and Frankenstein means hubris, and ghosts means unresolved issues, trauma, I guess you would call it. Right?

• 14:08Speaker 03

  I mean, the amount of queer people I've talked to about werewolf transformation, and them feeling so connected to werewolf stories, to the notion of, like, the beast within, and this terrible monstrosity that they have to hide and repress until it comes roaring out. Like, absolutely.

• 14:20Speaker 04

  It's always been there. Maybe we didn't have the language for it, and the way that we address it and talk about it is not the same that it used to.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, people just, like, now we're at an era now where we can have a supercut of Jamie Lee Curtis saying, "Trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma."

• 14:33Speaker 04

  Trauma, trauma, trauma, yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  It was always there. And it's interesting, the notion of way, like, when the discourse finally catches something that's always been there, and then kind of starts reacting to it like it's new. In the way that the way Get Out exploded horror in the consciousness in a way, where, like, the conversation that it took on became very mass market, but the conversation was about things that had always been happening, but it made a lot of people feel like they were discovering this thing that- Had just been invented for horror for them. So now they could finally like it in a way they couldn't before. Does do we feel like this movie is meeting the moment of where we want to feel in darkness? Or do we want to be farther from darkness? Because I feel like that was the thing about the trauma movies. The trauma wave.

• 15:08Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 15:08Speaker 03

  That started when we're all very upset. Like the end of the teens going into 20. And it's like, oh yeah, it's as big and bad and bleak as we thought it was. And now we're like, yeah, now it's nihilism. I think it's interesting how we process the language around therapy and therapy speak in those things where it's like, ah, end woke and that kind of stuff. And there's a sort of backlash to sincerity and emotion. So does like something like this with a vehicle of such a like heel in the character of Adam Scott? Is that like the addition that the trauma movie needs? Because we don't want like a sympathetic person going through that. We want like a bad person going through that. I don't know.

• 15:42Speaker 04

  I think it's also interesting in terms of when we're thinking about like trauma in horror movies, that the characters would do different things in older films. Like the way that we process trauma or talked about it then, or how it was perceived then. I was just thinking, I think it's Day of the Dead, where one of the main characters has recurring nightmares of like zombies like bursting through the wall and killing her and she's like waking up from a nightmare. And in essence, that was some sort of post-traumatic stress from the situation that she's in. Right. So it's always like been there in the background in some formation. But you know, how she reacts to it is very different than maybe, you know, the way that we would expect it to be seen now, or the way that directors are dealing with it now.

• 16:23Speaker 04

  So it's interesting here in Hokum, do we also have this like framing device of the story within a story? Because the story that he tells the bartender is this sort of like fantasy sort of thing. He's almost kind of like a Stephen King kind of figure in some way of like of this famous horror writer. Right. One who's like resentful of his fame and like kind of hates his fans. So then the one that he's like mulling through and like doesn't quite see a way through is this thing about like a conquistador and a child. And the journey that they're on, and originally it's like very bleak. And it's the bartender who tells them like, oh, I'm not going to read that.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  I'm not reading all that.

• 16:58Speaker 04

  I'm not doing that.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  Sorry that happened to you.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know, there's, there's a journey and an emotional journey that's parallel to the story within a story and how he, you know, his perspective has changes the way that story is shaped. So that's also interesting as like a sort of creator and storyteller and how our life experiences may then be reflected in the art that we make.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  I'm so glad, though, for since time immemorial, we send women to the sea for their hysteria and we go to isolated inns in the woods. I'm glad that that has always been the solution.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  Writers retreat.

• 17:37Speaker 03

  Writers retreat. Monica's new horror movie coming soon.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  And listen, if, if you're a person who doesn't like scary movies, this is not for you. This is most resolutely not for you.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:46Speaker 04

  Not for you.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  If the angle you come at this is I don't like scary movies, hard not recommend to you.

• 17:52Speaker 04

  Jump scares, creepy.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  You'll spend your entire time looking at the lower left hand corner of the screen, just hoping nothing happens down there.

• 17:58Speaker 04

  That's not even safe.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  May or may not be how I watch this movie. Okay. That brings us to the end of our show. Hard recommendation for Alkum, Jordan Cruciala, Monica Castillo. Thank you so much for being here.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Thank you for having us.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Happy Halloween. Happy October, everybody.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. Happy spring. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio. And you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org/happyhour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Hafsa Fatima and Mike Katzen and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. And Alkum in provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon and we'll see you all next time.

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