Hokum
I was hyped for this, after Oddity legitimately scared the hell out of me in a way that few movies have for a long time. But first: I missed the first ten minutes, give or take. This is because I strolled confidently into the cinema foyer two minutes after the advertised start time, hopefully missing a few ads, only for the ticket scanning guy to say “this ticket isn’t for here”. Not only was it not for here, I had somehow bought a ticket to see it in a cinema that was neither the one I was in, nor the one I had intended it to be in. I had gone to the wrong one twice removed and had to burn it to the subway to try figure out where this mysterious third cinema indeed was. The show was underway when I arrived, so I don’t really know how much I missed, but for the first time in my life I was thankful for the relentless onslaught of ads that we all have to put up with.
The movie follows Adam Scott - that guy from Severence - as American Ohm (!) Baumann visiting a hotel in some Irish backwater to disperse his parents’ ashes and - spoiler, with more to come - hang himself. The movie goes really out of its way to make him deeply unpleasant up front, notably burning a hotel employee’s hand with a hot spoon to make him go away. We learn that the honeymoon suite in the hotel has been locked up for years because, without the pretence of any other reason, there’s a witch in there. We see the manager making sure the gate to the lift is locked, when bartender Fiona goes missing, the police don’t even search it. It’s very haunted. Like, really absurdly haunted. Obviously Baumann and forest-dwelling weirdo with a heart of gold Jerry decide to go in to find Fiona after the hotel closes down for the season, Overlook style.
So that’s the set up, it’s very promising, though it takes a while to get there. There’s a haunted room, you’re not supposed to go in there, people go in there and get haunted. It looked fantastic, every combination of light and dark, with faces and noises coming out of the latter, was great. The witch is really only ever seen in these small glimpses, and it’s very effective, particularly when she is claiming the hotel manager in the basement surrounded by a crowd of whatever those things were with the eyes. I didn’t, though, find it scary. I think it’s partly Adam Scott, sorry, he’s too handsome and sarcastic, too American, even if that is the point. I think as well some of it is the back of my mind picking at the logic. Sorry, I can’t help it. The witch is never explained, that’s fine, but things like: the honeymoon suite doesn’t have a window you could break? The map to the fire escape tells you to go in a dumbwaiter to the basement? He doesn’t listen to the full tape recording in one go, but just piece by piece, some of it after going into the basement? The recording and intercom and basement fetch quest are very video-gamey as well. I’d basically overlook (no pun intended) all of this if I was terrified in spite of it, but it was not to be. Hopefully it was just me.
There’s also a story where Baumann accidentally killed his mother as a child by playing with a gun and blowing her head off. This doesn’t really affect anything, though I think the witch is his mother at some point. I guess it gives him a Trauma to overcome. Likewise the actual plot of Fiona getting killed by the hotel manager because he got her pregnant is all well and good, but - much like one of the small problems I had with Oddity - I don’t find it plausible that he would effectively go on a killing spree to continue covering it up. Shout out to the person in the cinema who said “oh no Jerry” out loud. Also the hotel manager and the employee who was trying to find Fiona kind of look identical, which muddied some revelations a little.
Maybe I was over hyped, I will definitely be back from McCarthy’s next, but for now I’m disappointed.