HiT or Miss: Halloween Isn’t Over Until You Watch ‘Hokum’

JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN (2027) MOVIE REVIEW #1:

If you’re anything like me (handsome, smart, virile), you get a lot of your movie advice from the indispensable crew at Red Letter Media. (I’ve covered them extensively in a previous column, but just… trust me)

And they were all over “Hokum” earlier this year. Since these kinds of low-to-mid-budget movies never play at my multiplex, I had to wait for it to stream, which it did. On Hulu. So I watched it.

And now I think you should, too.

“Hokum” stars the increasingly curmudgeonly Adam Scott (“Parks & Recreation”) as a best-selling writer visiting Ireland to dispose of his father’s ashes. Scott, an ace at playing acerbic jerks, is in top form as one here as he shuffles around an old hotel (that may or may not be haunted) being, well, an acerbic jerk to everyone.

After a pretty decent Act I twist, a mystery unspools that I don’t want to spoil. Just know that “Hokum” is one of those movies Hollywood doesn’t make anymore that we wish they would. Now here it is. Maybe if enough of us stream it they’ll let this dude (director Damian McCarthy) make another. 

JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN (2027) MOVIE REVIEW #2:

There has been a recent wave of movies that successfully deliver what I like to call a WTF Moment. You know the ones; your movie is just trucking along doing relatively normal movie things when out of nowhere something happens that makes you go WTF!?!

The great “Weapons” has a handful of these. The pretty good “Obsession” has two handfuls. And the very good “Resident Evil” has two handfuls and a couple of feet.

“They Will Kill You” (HBO because I refuse to call it MAX) is basically 90 minutes of WTF?

Zazie Beets stars as, well, it doesn’t really matter what she stars as; she just kicks unholy ass for an hour-and-a-half and looks pretty good doing it. She’s not 100 percent believable as an avenging, “Kill Bill”-type angel of death, but 100 percent believable as a very good-looking woman running around with a sword.

Myha’la (“Industry”) plays her sister. Patricia Arquette (“True Romance”) and Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) are also in it as servants of Satan. (Not a typo.) “They Will Kill You” is “John Wick” mixed with “The Shining’ mixed with “The Walking Dead” mixed with tons of cocaine (I assume but have zero proof).

Yeah, the plot is so much HAIL SATAN gobbledygook, but the action sequences are borderline spectacular.

Also fun? Good, honest, trashy, American fun?

“The Housemaid” (HBO because I refuse to call it MAX). Sydney Sweeney, our greatest living actress, is the titular maid, a young woman at the end of her rope who lands what appears to be her dream job as the live-in help for Really Good Looking Rich Couple (Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar).

Act I plays out about how you’d expect as she settles into her new life in a spectacular new mansion. Then a few cracks start to appear in the facade and, well, things spiral pretty swiftly from there.

As much fun as it is, there isn’t a whole lot to it, so it’s hard not to spoil the ensuing craziness. Just buckle in because it becomes a whole new movie about halfway through.

“The Housemaid’ overstays its welcome by about 20 minutes and goes a little over the top at times, but what else would you expect from your Sydney Sweeney Takes Wrecking Ball To Idyllic Marriage movie?

DO I CARE OR IS THE INTERNET TRYING TO MAKE ME CARE? OF THE WEEK

I am an unabashed fan of Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” and “Dune II.” I am also a huge fan of literally all of his earlier work (“Sicario” is one of my all-time faves), so I have been very consistent on this topic.

I suspect I will also love “Dune III,” but the Internet wants me to be really mad that it doesn’t follow the book exactly. Here lies the conundrum.

Were I a huge fan of the “Dune” books (I am not, though I am a huge fan of other books ***cough cough “ENDER’S GAME” cough cough*** that have been adapted badly) I would absolutely care.

I was the guy watching “Batman” (1989) in theaters going, “You know, Joker actually had nothing to do with Bruce Wayne’s parents being murdered…”

So I’m not immune to caring about stuff.

But I’ve been reliably informed that the book that “Dune III” is adapting is virtually unfilmable. So the verdict is… I don’t care. I will judge the movie on its merits as a movie. Perhaps, one day, I will dive into the Frank Herbert books and perhaps, one day, I will care about this.

But today is not that day.

HOW DARE YOU! OF THE WEEK: Hollywood in Toto founder Christian Toto has decreed that John Malkovich is better in “Wild Horse Nine” than Tom Cruise is in “Digger.” While I am a huge Malkovich fan going back to “Dangerous Liaisons” (and he’s probably really very good in “Wild Horse Nine”) “Digger” is the best performance of Cruise’s career, and this slander will not stand!

John Malkovich is so much better in “Wild Horse Nine” than Tom Cruise was in “Digger” https://t.co/BhrPZ2bdaQ

— Christian Toto (@HollywoodInToto) November 4, 2026

INSTANT PITCH! Cruise and Malkovich star as world-weary FBI agents assigned to infiltrate the Russian mob! Sells itself… SIDE NOTE: Malkovich was offered the Green Goblin role in “Spider-Man” 2002 and would probably have been great, but imagine a world without those Willem Dafoe memes…

CAN WE PLEASE RETIRE THE DELCO ACCENT?: Two episodes into Apple TV’s excellent new series “Nocturne” I am sure of two things. 1. The Liev Schreiber-Stephen Graham starring show is going to be an A+ mystery series for Apple TV.

2. I’ve had enough of the “Mare of Easttown” “dorter in the wooder” Philly accent to last a lifetime.

Look, we know all you actor types like to build your circles and complete your processes and other such actorly hokum (I’m an actor. Trust me. It’s all hokum) to appear “authentic,” but the Delco accent is impossible to emulate and just sounds ridiculous.

Schreiber books thousands of hours of voice work every year because he sounds like Liev Schreiber, not because he says “Wawa” like a local.

PALETE CLEANSER OF THE WEEK

If you’re totally bummed about the election results (and you should be) and need to take your mind off things, allow me to suggest “Detectorists” on Prime Video and Acorn+ (hey, I have that Acorn subscription for another two weeks, I may as well use it).

“Detectorists” is a gentle, meandering light comedy conceived by Mackenzie Crook (The UK’s “Office”) and co-starring Toby Jones (“Infamous”) as a couple of English metal detector enthusiasts. And unless you are a metal detector enthusiast, the stakes are pretty low.

But therein lies most of its charm. It’s 20 episodes in all, an easy binge on a rainy weekend.

And finally, this week, and with the Christmas season rapidly approaching (at Old Navy, my day job, it’s been Christmas since early October), did you know that the guy who founded Mannhein Steamroller co-wrote and produced the 1975 chart-topper “Convoy,” one of the great bad songs of all time?

Man… there are a lot of weird things in the universe…

‘Til next time, may your hits be more plentiful than your misses.