Hokum (15)

Best-selling American author Ohm Bauman is struggling to find the perfect ending to his latest novel. To reinvigorate his creative juices, he travels to Ireland to spread the ashes of his parents in the grounds of Bilberry Woods Hotel, where the late couple stayed on their honeymoon. Hotel bellhop Alby shares his close encounter with the witch, who lives in the Honeymoon Suite, Ohm dismisses the tall tale as pure hokum. Soon after, a member of the staff goes missing and Ohm investigates.

LondonNet Film Review

Hokum (15) Film Review from LondonNet

The term “hokum” appears to date back to the early 20th century when sections of the theatre community applied it to exaggerated performance on a stage, designed to elicit a laugh or strong response from an audience. The word has become synonymous with nonsense, particularly in relation to theatre, film and TV work, and some linguists suggest it might be a portmanteau of hocus pocus and bunkum. Writer-director Damian McCarthy savours negative connotations of hokum in an efficient but disappointingly scare-free haunted house horror steeped in Irish folklore…

Best-selling American author Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is struggling to find the perfect ending to his latest novel chronicling the adventures of a conquistador (Austin Amelio) and young companion (Ezra Carlisle). Hopeful a change of scenery might reinvigorate his creative juices, Ohm travels to Ireland to spread the ashes of his parents in the grounds of Bilberry Woods Hotel, where the late couple stayed on their honeymoon.

Ohm is an unapologetic misanthrope and angry alcoholic. Disdain drips from his lips as he cruelly snuffs out the literary ambitions of hotel bellhop Alby (Will O’Connell). He is similarly cold and unfriendly towards front desk manager Mal (Peter Coonan), resident handyman Fergal (Michael Patric) and bartender and maid Fiona (Florence Ordesh). When Alby shares his close encounter with the witch (Sioux Carroll), who lives in the Honeymoon Suite, Ohm dismisses the tall tale as pure hokum. Soon after, a member of the staff goes missing and Ohm goes looking for disquieting answers, accompanied by magic mushroom-fuelled loner Jerry (David Wilmot), who lives in the woods and brews psychedelic concoctions to open himself to messages from the spirit world.

Shot on location in West Cork, Hokum lives up to its title with an outlandish dramatic conceit suggesting witchcraft and wickedness behind closed doors. Writer-director McCarthy deftly exploits tropes and subverts them for polite chills, including a protracted sequence in a dimly lit basement that strongly recalls the subterranean horror of the 2022 film Barbarian. His script goes out of its way to make Ohm as disagreeable and deliberately uncaring as possible in the opening half hour. Naturally, there is an attempt at redemption but when the character becomes trapped inside the Honeymoon Suite and discovers the room’s dark and twisted secrets, it’s hard to muster sympathy as the writer descends into hell on screen.

Scott doesn’t require dialogue to powerfully convey his malcontent’s creeping dread and the camera remains tight on his face when darker elements of this contemporary fairy tale manifest. Happy ever afters require payment in pain and suffering, and there is plenty of both in McCarthy’s polished and clinical picture.

– Kim Hu