Reel Deal Reviews • "Hokum" (2026)

After experiencing the disappointing Longlegs (Osgood Perkins does not share his father’s talents), the “just okay” Nosferatu remake, and the nauseatingly quippy Ready or Not: Here I Come, I would say that I do not have a high regard for “modern horror.” Beyond those turkeys, I dislike the pretentiousness inherent in the phrase “elevated horror” (enough to where I go out of my way to avoid watching them) and the relentless cashing-in on new “icons” like Art the Clown and M3GAN littering Spirit Halloweens, so much so that I usually try to steer clear of anything horror post-early-nineties. Because of this, I did not have a high bar for Hokum, the 2026 Irish horror flick directed by Damian McCarthy and starring Adam Scott (you know—that Ice Clown who lost his Town Crown because of Ice Town). However, instead of “Longlegs but Mark’s Outie is Irish” like I was expecting, I was pleasantly surprised by a damn fine horror movie!

Hokum (or as I frequently mistype it, Hookum) follows Ohm Bauman (no relation to Jay), a famous author known for his Conquistador series of historical-fantasy novels. Ohm checks into a remote Irish hotel (the one his parents stayed at for their honeymoon) in order to “make peace” with his folks via ash scattering. However, a shocking reveal kicks into motion a whole Hookum of spookums that positively ruin Ohm’s European vacation! 

I really dug almost everything about this movie—it’s lean one hour and forty-one minute runtime, the way that the horror was executed, and not only Adam Scott’s acting, but the rest of the cast, too. (Specifically David Wilmot for his not-so-crazy Jerry and Austin Amelio, the only time I will ever give a Conquistador a compliment.) The ending was satisfying, which is a rarity in the horror genre—even with those older movies I like! (It’s iconic now, but if I watched the original Friday the 13th when it was in theaters, I probably would’ve been a little pissed off that it was all for nothing.) 

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TOP O’ THA SPOILERIN’:

One thing that I haven’t heard people talking about are the numerous similarities found between Hokum and The Shining. Despite the obvious fact that they’re both horror movies that take place at a haunted hotel, they both follow an alcoholic writer who is haunted by demons from his past. Jerry takes on a similar role that Doc Holloway plays—the only person who offers any sort of help and is sadly rewarded for their kindness by getting murdered towards the end of the movie. Both movies have a person dressed up in a fuzzy animal costume: the dog man in The Shining, and Hokum’s cross-eyed children’s TV show host (as well as Fiona’s Halloween costume). The Honeymoon Suite is the off-limits room of the hotel haunted by a creepy old woman, the same thing as the infamous Room 237. These aren’t listed in a negative way (I proudly wear my influences on my sleeve in my work), I just thought that it was neat to connect the dots between these two movies that I enjoy. (On a non-Kubrickian note, the reveal of the witch’s face lost all sort of suspense for me at that moment, since she looked exactly like Bub from Day of the Dead.)

And, as much as I love him, Adam Scott’s acting felt a little wooden two or three times. However, it wasn’t during any sort of important suspenseful/emotional scene, he was great during those! No, I think of the scene towards the beginning where he meets Jerry for the first time; compared to David Wilmot’s performance, Scott’s readings sound a little bit stale. 

But as I said before, he kicks ass during the horror parts and can really carry a scene on his own. The whole portion of the movie where he’s all alone in The Honeymoon Suite is fantastic, being on-the-edge-of-your-seat terrifying despite the fact that it’s just Adam for the majority of that time. It reminds me of the post-Linda, pre-Annie scenes in Evil Dead 2, where it’s just Bruce Campbell losing his mind in the cabin. The ability to carry a whole high-energy, highly entertaining sequence on your own (such as David Hyde Pierce’s segment of the “Three Valentines” episode of Frasier) is something I value in an actor. (And a director, too! Props to Damian McCarthy making this movie entertaining despite most of it taking place in one location and mostly featuring one actor on screen.)

A small thing I would change would be towards the beginning of the film when Ohm first pulls into the Bilberry Hotel. He meets a guy fixing the front of his car, and a pan towards a dead deer next to him tells us all that we need to know (despite the fact that they go on to explain why for those denser audience members). Personally, I would have changed that deer to a rabbit. Although they would have to tweak the amount of damage that occurred (I imagine a ran-over rabbit is more “annoying” to clean up than a ran-over deer is “damaging”), I think the recurring rabbit imagery would’ve benefited from some ranking up—we got the rabbit kid’s show host, we got Fiona’s rabbit costume… and that’s it. One more thing would’ve been nice to really hammer home the rabbit motif they have (for some reason). (I guess rabbits are common in Ireland or something? Or perhaps they’re meant to portray innocence—since they’re only brought up when discussing Ohm’s childhood and Fiona’s undeserving demise.) 

UPDATE: Apparently the kid’s TV show host is supposed to be a donkey. His name is “Jack,” so I assumed that it was supposed to be “Jack the Jackrabbit,” but no, it’s “Jack the Jackass.” Maybe they should’ve given him a snout or something to make it more obvious, since the only people I see referring to Jack as a donkey are NEON themselves. 

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So shove The Mummy back in its sarcophagus and wade past Deep Water, the real horror movie to see right now is Hokum! Just make sure that you don’t buy a large popcorn like I did—medium is more than plenty, and you’ll just feel bad for loudly chewing it during this pretty quiet movie.

[This review was originally posted on 5/10/2026 via my Patreon. Subscribe for just $1.50 a month and get early access to not only my book/movie/TV/album reviews, but to my artwork, comics, and creative writing, too!]

Talkin’ Tomes • EC Comics Presents: Epitaphs from the Abyss #2

 

Psst! This is a review of EC Comics: Epitaphs from the Abyss #2! If you haven’t already read my review of EFTA #1 or you need a refresher on what EC Comics was, check it out here! https://www.patreon.com/posts/talkin-tomes-ec-156493523

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ISSUE #2: 

The Cover: 

A birthday clown is caught off guard when a horde of demonic, sharp-fanged children rush towards him! I’m not sure if this is another Lee Bermejo, but it looks as well-painted as the first issue’s cover. However, as nice as it looks, I’m not really a fan of this one. I dislike children and I dislike clowns—not in a coulrophobic sense, but in a “they’re ugly and annoying” one. (Note: I use “demonic” instead of “zombie,” since the kids look more like Deadites than shamblers. Refer to their red eyes, sharp teeth, and scrunched-up faces.)

The Intro: 

The Grave-Digger reveals that the kids are his “brood,” although I don’t see the family resemblance. A dead, bloody body is laying on the ground, which the Grave-digger explains with…

Story 1: “Pattern Recognition” • Written by Matt Kindt, Art by Klaus Janson, Colored by Michelle Madsen

Johnny, a no-good thug, runs a Clockwork Orange-esqe gang dedicated to maiming and robbing anybody unfortunate enough to cross paths with them. One of Johnny’s disciples has an unnatural obsession with him, describing “Johnny isn’t a god. But if there is one… I’d like to think this is what he looks like…” (43). One night, the disciple gets knocked down to the ground during a scuffle and lands head-first onto a rusty nail. After that, he describes everything becoming “so much clearer” (46). The disciple’s mental state, which was already in a rough place, starts to rapidly devolve as he begins to talk about Johnny’s criminalistic worldview in religious terms. He becomes set on “freeing Johnny’s ideas,” ending the story by driving a nail through the leader’s head as he sleeps. 

• The story was sub-par to me, but the colors in this one were great! They’re very pop-art-y, contrasting background and foreground pallets with juxtaposing warm tones vs. cool tones. 

• As much as I thought the story was “meh,” it did go in a place I wasn’t expecting it to. The line “If his ideas can spread… then the movement will grow. We’re effecting change, one person at a time” led me to believe that the story was going to play on Stockholm Syndrome—the disciple would kidnap people, torture them until they saw things “Johnny’s way” and joined the exponentially-growing gang. But nope, it ended on a very parallel note that fits more into the “ironic” spirit of EC.

Story 2: “Gray Green Memories” • Written and Art by Tyler Crook, Colored by Michelle Madsen

A zombie stands in an abandoned grocery store, blankly staring at a shelf with a hint of confusion on her gaunt, partially decomposed face. A second-person narration wonders, “How long have you been standing there? A day? A month? A year? It feels like you have always been here. But that’s not right, is it?” (51). With a close up of what she’s staring at—a can of baby food—we piece together that the zombie was once a mother. Several panels flash back to silently fill in the gaps of her story while the narration continues—her and a flurry of other shoppers running away from the pursuing undead, a picture of a man and a child in a tossed-out wallet, and her finally getting bit. However, the reminiscing ends when the woman hears a “nails on a chalkboard” noise and the virus takes her over once more. She finds the source of it—a mother and a daughter talking—and lunges at them, only to get blasted away with a shotgun. Her now-decapitated head is laying on the ground, staring at the baby food once more — “How long… how long have you been lying there? A day? A month? A year? It feels like you’ve always been here, but that’s not right, is it? You came here to get something… important.” (56). 

• This is easily my favorite story from this volume. Not only does it get brownie points for being about zombies, but it’s also something that fascinates me as much as it scares the hell out of me: a human conscience trapped in a zombie body. 

  • It’s something touched on in the original Dawn of the Dead:

Francine: They're still here.

Stephen: They're after us. They know we're still in here.

Peter: They're after the place. They don't know why; they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here.

Francine Parker: What are they doing? Why do they come here?

Stephen: Some kind of instinct. Memory of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.

• It’s also why George Romero killed off Roger later in the movie—as much fun as Left4Dead 2 is, killing zombies is supposed to be heavy, you’re killing another (almost) human being, regardless of any sort of virus that’s taken over their mind. 

  • Great reasoning for why Roger had to die narratively: https://boxd.it/1qOK6r

• “Being dismembered as an immortal being” is a completely unrealistic-yet-recurring fear of mine. It’s a worse fate than Hell—being cut up into pieces that are tossed away and forgotten about, forced to live in a “I Have No Mouth but I Must Scream” scenario forever. 

  • See me capitalize on these fears via Delores’ plan for Captain “Sawbones” Sawyer Cain in Boarding Party’s “Hell or High Water!” 

Story 3: “Sounds and Haptics” • Written by Jason Aaron, Art by Jorge Fornés, Colored by Michelle Madsen (Damn, Michelle again!)

Rex Maxwell wakes up in a hospital, groggy and unaware of how much shit he’s in. He’s chained to his bed, his phone beckoning for attention but just out of reach. Two of his fingers are missing, and a homely nurse informs him that the wounds have become infected—his operations must begin immediately. As the surgery happens off-screen, Rex tries to recall what had recently happened until that point: going out for a drive, getting a notification, and—oh, yeah—getting into a high-speed collision while distracted. He survived, but nobody in the other car did—that is, nobody but the nurse. With her whole family dead and Rex’s attention solely on his ever-important phone, the nurse knocks him out. Presently, Rex awakens from his surgery and stumbles around the hospital, drawn to the constant pinging of his phone. He tries to pick it up, but discovers that his hands have been cut into stumps. Seeking revenge, the nurse smashes his phone and informs him that they’ve still “got a lot more work to do” (65). The story ends with Rex lying on a hospital bed, covered in blood, missing several appendages (including his nose, arms, and legs), and still tortured by the constant pinging noise. 

• I really enjoyed this one, too! While I didn’t love it the same way I loved “Gray Green Memories,” I still thought that it was creepy, had a good message, and satisfied my bloodlust—all the signs of a good EC Comics story!

• Pardon my early-onset-boomerism, but I enjoyed the way this touched on cell phone addiction—particularly when it comes to social media. Even after getting rid of it all from my phone (except for Discord, which is always set to silent), I still feel like I spend a grotesque amount of time on those apps/sites, even though I know I’m relatively offline compared to most people.

  • Read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport if you’re interested in reducing the amount of time you spend plugged in! (Of course, don’t fully unplug, since you wouldn’t be able to subscribe to this Patreon!) 

Epitaphs from the Abyss Issue #2 quickly picks up steam, starting off on a “meh” story before locking in for the remainder of its pages. I didn’t care for the Grave-digger’s antics this time around nor the cover, but the actual stories were better than those found in Epitaphs #1. Next time we'll cover #3, which features one of my favorite stories in the series and one that really... SUCKS! (Note: That pun will be a lot funnier when you see what the story's about.) 

[This review was originally posted on 5/9/2026 via my Patreon. Subscribe for just $1.50 a month and get early access to not only my book/movie/TV/album reviews, but to my artwork, comics, and creative writing, too!]