The Great Content Scheduling Machine Grinds On
Bless Their Hearts, They’ve Picked a Date
Let’s all take a moment to stand and applaud. No, really. Give them a hand. The brave souls at Neon, in a stunning act of prophetic foresight, have gazed into their crystal ball, consulted their accountants, and declared that a supernatural horror film titled, and I am not making this up, Hokum, will grace our presence on May 1, 2026. Two. Years. From. Now. Is this filmmaking or agricultural planning? It feels less like a creative announcement and more like they’re reserving a pavilion for a company picnic that far in advance, desperately hoping the world hasn’t been swallowed by a black hole or, worse, completely run out of original movie plots by then. The latter seems more likely. What a world. The sheer audacity to plant a flag on a release date so far in the future for a genre flick that will likely have the cultural shelf-life of a carton of milk is just… well, it’s peak late-stage Hollywood, isn’t it? It’s the ultimate triumph of logistics over inspiration. The spreadsheet has won.
And the name. Oh, the name! Hokum. It’s either a stroke of self-aware genius or the most tragically oblivious title in recent memory. Are they telling us it’s all nonsense from the get-go? Is it a meta-commentary on the state of horror, a genre that increasingly relies on tired jump scares and trauma metaphors so heavy-handed they might as well bludgeon you with a therapy textbook? Or did they just pull it out of a hat filled with words that sound vaguely spooky? My money is on the hat. It screams focus group. “What word makes you think of old-timey trickery but is also easy to trademark?” Hokum! Perfect. Ship it. It’s almost as if the film is winking at us, whispering, “Don’t worry, this is all just smoke and mirrors designed to separate you from fifteen dollars for a ticket and another twenty for popcorn. You know the drill.” At least they’re being honest. Maybe.
This isn’t an artistic endeavor being lovingly crafted for a future audience; this is a content slot being filled. It’s a placeholder on a corporate calendar, a Q2 deliverable for 2026. The announcement itself feels completely devoid of passion, a press release fired into the void to assure investors that, yes, the content pipeline is still flowing, don’t you worry. We have products scheduled for production and delivery. They’ll be assembled by our skilled director, Damian McCarthy of Oddity fame—a guy who managed to make one decent little spook-fest and is now being fed right back into the machine to replicate it. Can he do it again? Does it even matter? As long as it hits its opening weekend projection, its artistic merit is utterly irrelevant. The whole affair has the romantic charm of a quarterly earnings report.
The Curious Case of Adam Scott: Scream King or Paycheck Player?
From Cones of Dunshire to Cowering in a Corner
And then there’s Adam Scott. Sweet, lovable, perpetually exasperated Adam Scott. The man who gave us the neurotic but endearing Ben Wyatt in Parks and Recreation and the existentially tormented Mark Scout in the brilliant Severance. Now he’s headlining a supernatural horror movie called Hokum. Why? Is this his bid for true artistic versatility, a desperate attempt to prove he can do more than just be charmingly anxious or soul-crushingly depressed? Is he trying to pull a Toni Collette in Hereditary, to deliver a genre-defining performance that elevates the material into something unforgettable? Or is it just a really, really good payday? Let’s be real. It’s probably the payday.
There’s a well-trodden path for comedic actors trying to “go dark.” Sometimes it works beautifully—think Robin Williams in One Hour Photo or Bryan Cranston in, well, everything post-Malcolm in the Middle. But for every Cranston, there are a dozen Vince Vaughns flailing in generic thrillers. It’s a huge gamble. Scott has the dramatic chops, no one is denying that. His performance in Severance is a masterclass in quiet desperation. But can he translate that into the often-schlocky world of supernatural horror? A world of creaking doors, shadowy figures, and probably a creepy child who draws unsettling pictures? It feels like hiring a Michelin-starred chef to run a hot dog stand. He’s almost too good, too nuanced for what will likely be a 95-minute jump-scare delivery system. Will we see him running through a dimly lit house, screaming about a Gaelic curse while we all sit there thinking, “Man, I hope Leslie Knope is okay”? It’s a distinct possibility. The ghost of Ben Wyatt looms large.
Perhaps this is his mid-career crisis. Instead of buying a sports car, he’s decided to star in a horror movie. He’s looked at the careers of Ethan Hawke and Patrick Wilson, who have successfully carved out niches as the go-to dads-in-peril of the horror world, and thought, “I want some of that.” It’s a steady gig, I’ll give him that. The demand for familiar, likable faces to put in mortal danger is insatiable. But does it serve his talent? Or does it just dilute his brand, turning him from a respected actor into another face on a disposable horror poster? Only time, and the box office receipts of May 2026, will tell. I’m just not holding my breath for his magnum opus.
The Indie Darling Pipeline and the Myth of “Elevated Horror”
Is NEON Just A24 in a Different Font?
Let’s talk about the distributor, Neon. The house that Parasite built. A studio with a reputation for distributing critically acclaimed, often challenging, international and independent films. They are the cool kids. They’re supposed to be above this sort of thing, aren’t they? Slapping a two-years-out release date on a generic-sounding horror flick feels so… mainstream. So… Focus Features. It reeks of a company trying to play the big studio game. They saw the money A24 made by branding slow-burn horror as “elevated” and decided they needed their own cash cow. Can you blame them? Not really. But you can certainly be cynical about it.
This is the game now. Find a director with one quirky, low-budget success—in this case, Damian McCarthy and his film Oddity—and give them a slightly bigger budget, a recognizable star, and the mandate to “do that again, but for a wider audience.” It’s the indie-to-studio pipeline in action. It’s a process that often sands down the interesting, jagged edges of a filmmaker’s voice until what’s left is smooth, polished, and utterly forgettable. Will Hokum be the next Hereditary or The Witch, a film that genuinely pushes the boundaries of the genre? Or will it be the next The Grudge remake, a film that exists solely because a slot on the calendar needed filling? The title itself seems to be pointing us toward the latter.
So what can we expect on May 1, 2026? Let me put on my prognostication hat. Adam Scott will play a grieving architect/writer/professor who moves his family (or what’s left of it) to a remote house with a dark history. There will be strange noises. A local townsperson, played by David Wilmot, will issue cryptic warnings that are summarily ignored. The supernatural entity will turn out to be a metaphor for unresolved family trauma or maybe the gig economy. There will be exactly three effective jump scares, all of which will be in the trailer. The ending will be ambiguous, leaving the door open for a sequel titled Hokum: More Hokum. And we’ll all walk out of the theater, check our phones, and promptly forget the entire experience. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Hokum will be a terrifying masterpiece that redefines horror for a new generation. But given the evidence? I’d say that’s just a bunch of… well, you know.
