Watched Hokum last night, the latest movie from writer/director Damian Mc Carthy. Been a fan of his for ages, ever since I saw Caveat (still my favorite movie of his, though I love this one to pieces). It was odd watching this movie after re-reading the Shining and then reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Bewitching. There felt like echoes between the three, strange reverberations. Missing people, rumors of witches. A haunted hotel, and abuse. A character that shines with psychic power (though this one is powered by mushrooms and moonshine).

Yes, the character is unlikable at the start. But then you see why he seems so prickly, and you realize he hates himself, not other people. What comes off as asshole is masking self destruction. But I won’t get too much into that, it was interesting, the twist and turns of plots. There are some visual references to The Shining, for sure. But also, oddly, a few to The Haunting from 1999. Yes, that movie. Which made it more interesting, in my eyes.

The atmosphere was top notch, characters extremely well drawn. The sad hits hard, super hard, and the ending feels very cathartic. It reminded me of Dark Song in that way. I did notice some bits of the movie felt very video-gamey, and it had a lot of echoes with Silent Hill as well (esp Silent Hill 2). These aren’t bad things, but they are interesting to note, and interesting to pay attention to.

A beautiful movie, yes. Though, side note: I realized watching this and other recent movies that when night shots are done on modern digital cameras (or is this might just day for night with AI or CGI or something?) it looks all murky and shiny and weird. It makes me think of that episode of Game of Thrones everyone complained about because it just looked bad and was hard to see. I was testing out some Super 8mm Tungsten grade stock, and checking how it filmed night, and it just looked beautiful, even low lit at night. I noticed that in older films, too, while watching the Warriors, and Taxi Driver, and etc.

Also, damn the corpses look like corpses in this movie and it’s very unsettling. Loved it. Creepy, terrifying, it works on those levels and gets under the skin. I was smiling the whole time, horror really is my happy place.

But that’s not a complaint on this movie per se, just on modern tools and modern filmmaking. Anyway, the long and short of it is I loved the film. I would watch it again and again. Probably one of the better films this year. I would say it would make a fun triple feature with The Innkeepers (also video gamey) and the Shining. The order I would probably do would be Innkeepers, Hokum, and then the Shining.

Anyway, I hear the reviews are mixed. I can see why. But honestly, if you liked the directors other films, you’ll like this one as well, I think. The “flaws” people mention I think are more the director’s voice and style, and what they see as minuses I see as plusses. Or something.