The first few minutes of "Hokum" might make you think you're in the wrong movie. I certainly did. If you know anything about Damian McCarthy's new horror movie, out Friday, it's probably that it involves Adam Scott and a haunted Irish hotel. The setting is green and damp, a little chilly and full of antiquities that toe the line between charming and creepy. So why is the opening image that of an expansive desert sitting beneath a bright blue sky? And why is the first character you see a Spanish conquistador (Austin Amelio), in armor, with a little boy by his side and a map in his hand? It's an easy answer, but that doesn't make it an especially satisfying choice. You see, Scott's character, Ohm Bauman, is a novelist, a rather famous one, who is finishing his conquistador trilogy. The book, or at least how to finish it, looms over him on a trip to scatter his long-deceased parents' ashes near the hotel in Ireland where they had their honeymoon. There is a kind of logical payoff to the conquistador story, but the disparate images of that setting haunts (and not in a good way) an otherwise very scary and very aesthetically coherent movie. The conquistador isn't the only problem with "Hokum," the title of which may very well be a catch-all defense against anyone crying about story issues — it's all just nonsense anyway! It's just the most glaring, and doesn't exactly help ease anyone into this journey with Ohm who is, how to say this delicately, an impossible jerk. Truly, Ohm is the kind of guy who is guaranteed to ruin anyone's day, especially kindly service industry professionals who have no choice but to be civil. He is entitled, dismissive and will go out of his way to say something cruel and condescending when nothing at all would have sufficed. Ohm... Read More