Written by Nicole Cabrera

The line between the normal and supernatural, the seen and unseen is thin on the best of days- every country has their own myths, creatures and reason for the unexplainable and Ireland is no exception to the rule. A country rich in history,culture and flair for the supernatural with its vast greenery there are secrets hidden in its hills. Director Damien McCarthy is no stranger to this topic as he dives in once again to explore the dark side of Irish lore in his new film Hokum.

Hokum starts like a Stephen King influenced story, an embittered writer looking for the end of his next great tale; Ohm Hanuman (Adam Scott) is a man with many demons fighting for control. He is haunted by a shaky relationship with his deceased parents and is trying to fight off the beast that is writers block; moved by the shadows in the dark and after rummaging through his parents belongings- he decides to take a trip to the hotel where they had spent happier times on their honeymoon in the Irish hills at the “Bilberry Hills Hotel”. The hotel is one that rivals the Overlook in theme; It’s a scenic cabin type that seems to be perpetually trapped in the past, complete with wrought iron elevator gates, creaky floors, and its very own witch curse in the honeymoon suites.

Ohm begins to explore the area meeting a colourful cast of characters: Mal the owner’s son-in-law, Alby (Will O’ Conell) - an aspiring author and bell hop whom Ohm is none too nice to; a bartender with a love for the supernatural Fiona (Florence Ordesh) and lastly Jerry a wild man, who lives in the surrounding woods.Ohm’s attempt at peace however, is cut short; a night at the bar, has Ohm acting erratic, violent and the worst version of the ego-driven author. When he finally heads to his room and leaves most of his possessions behind, Fiona, having a hunch that he is not acting like himself, goes to return his forgotten items -only to just barely save Ohm as he attempts to take his own life.

From here, McCarthy puts the film into high gear, as Ohm comes to collect his belongings and thank Fiona for saving his life; a horrible truth has come to life: she is missing, no one has seen her in days. Ohm has his suspensions of some of the hotel workers especially after meeting Fergal the groundskeeper and hearing rumours of wildman Jerry’s dark past. Yet,when he confronts him he finds that Jerry cares for Fiona as much as Ohm had come to. Jerry confesses about seeing Fiona’s ghost and suspecting she is being held in the haunted off- limits honeymoon suite. Thus, the two men team up to sneak back into the hotel determined to find an answer; They quickly hit a roadblock with the nasty employees and in the chaos Ohm manages to escape up to the haunted room in question but is quickly trapped in the cursed room and here our story dives deeper into into the supernatural.

*Hokum* succeeds when it allows to dive deeper into the psyche of its characters and its unraveling circumstances.

Trapped for the foreseeable future in a witch-curse honeymoon sweet, Ohm realizes he is not alone, kept company by Fiona’s unfortunate dead body victim of a fraught affair with the hotel staff.Her ghost of a voice now only existing on a tape recorder to guide Ohm boldly to attempts to escape- not one to be deterred. He starts looking for a way out- the only options seem to be up and down in a dumbwaiter, one way is locked in place, the other- far below the hotel where something lurks-whether witch, creature or something else…

Hokum’s strength is that it is not what it appears to be, while on the surface it looks like a jump scare bonanza and is advertised as such ( there is a donkey-like creature that is the stuff of nightmares) however;the film is much more introspective than terrifying.Within the nightmare room,Ohm sees a childhood memory long repressed- of what happened to his mother and the role he had played in her demise. Scott is no stranger to the horror genre and quickly is becoming a rare but poignant "Scream King" and this film is no exception. Scott does some of his best work to date; a lot of the film is quiet and evocative; there are moments when Scott is overflowing with emotion shouting, swearing, swinging big and at others weighed down by grief and guilt that he has carried with him his whole adult life and he can barely carry on- especially near the end of the film some of the moments with his mother’s memory were truly moving.

An element of Hokum that is more questionable and hurts the film’s story is the flip flopping between the realness of the supernatural and the possibility that it’s pure… well hokum. Obviously, there are skeptics as there will be with everything unexplained in this world; however in the case of this film, it very quickly leans so heavily into the fact that something big or small of supernatural nature exists in this world- only for there to be a half feeble attempt at a rug pull near the end of the film and throw off the otherworldly vibe. Hokum is presenting all these supernatural elements and then choking it up to potentially nothing but a drug trip by an embittered bellhop seems sloppy and seems to backtrack on what has already been established and the argument is simply lacking for everything that McCarthy has shown us up until this point.

Despite this hitch, McCarthy's strength, much like in his previous film, is his ability to tie the supernatural into the waking world so easily. It is not over the top-dramatic but it is there in eerie silences, in the dark shadows and long hallways and in the cruelty of human nature. Like his film Oddity where the monster in question was a gollum, and here a witch and yet still, the greatest cruelty is man.

Nicole Cabrera is a Toronto-based film enjoyer with a passion for the eighties, horror, and deep diving their favourite actors’ obscure filmography. When they’re not watching movies, they're writing, crafting, cosplaying, going to concerts, working on their podcast (Hollywood Deepdive) and dreaming of traveling.