With any story, you expect a protagonist to bear some inkling of likability — or, barring that, relatability. That’s especially necessary for horror stories: It’s probably better if the audience is rooting for your lead character, not silently hoping they’ll get some comeuppance.
Of course, plenty of scary tales have subverted those expectations by focusing on grade A pricks, but few toy with our biases as deftly as Hokum. The latest from director Damian McCarthy stars Adam Scott as Ohm, a pretentious author whose tragic past does little to excuse his awful behavior — at least, it feels that way when we first meet him. When he travels to a quaint hotel in Ireland to scatter his parents’ ashes, he quickly establishes himself as a menace, even burning a fan who wants to follow in his footsteps as a writer.
