Movie Review – Hokum

In English dictionary terms, the word hokum refers to something that is absurd, exaggerated, or just downright insincere. Nonsense. Untrue ideas. Foolishness. When I looked up what this word meant when I saw Damian Mc Carthy made a film and used this word as the title, I knew we were in for a film that would make us question reality. That it would make us question if what happened actually happened.

This Irish folklore horror film includes a Cailleach, the Gailic word for hag. Old woman. Witch. You get the idea. In Old Irish, it means “veiled one” and is associated with a pagan goddess who ushers in winter on the night of Samhain. In fact, modern day Halloween originated in Ireland with the Celtic festival Samhain 2000 years ago. On this night, it is believed that the boundaries between our world and the spirit world are at their thinnest which allows spirits to cross between worlds. Original festivals included bonfires and carving faces out of turnips. Trick or treating has origins in how people used to leave out food to satisfy spirits during Samhain festivals.

This new film takes place around modern day Halloween at a remote hotel in the Irish countryside. A grieving American Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) arrives and is generally rude to everyone. He is obviously carrying something emotionally heavy. Eventually, we find out that both of his parents are deceased. His mother died when he was a child after he accidentally shot her and his father died years later after blaming his son for the death. Ohm has come to this hotel because of one photograph of his mother taken there at a large tree. He finds the tree and spreads both his parents’ ashes before getting drunk at the hotel bar. He also meets a man living in the woods, Mal. Mal shares his moonshine with Ohm and the two strike up a bit of a kinship and Mal ends up being instrumental in the third act of the movie.

For context, this hotel has a honeymoon suite that can only be accessed by elevator. The staff have the elevator blocked off by a metal gate that hangs from the ceiling. Only one staff member has a key. Ohm finds out that the room is haunted and that there is a witch up there. He doesn’t believe this however. To him, its hokum. Nonsense.

One of the employees, Fiona (Florence Ordesh), gives Ohm empathy while he drinks at the bar, and knows something is off. She demands entry to Ohm’s room later only to discover he had attempted to hang himself. After Ohm spends some time in the hospital, he returns to the hotel to find that it is closing for the season and that Fiona is missing. When he questions if anyone checked the honeymoon suite, he gets the runaround and steals the key to the gate so he can check for himself. He feels responsible for Fiona since she saved his life.

Ohm, through a series of events that includes an unwanted pregnancy and another employee’s ulterior motives, ends up trapped in the honeymoon suite where he finds Fiona’s bunny rabbit costume clad corpse in a dumbwaiter that leads to an old basement that has no exit. What transpires during this time in this room is akin to Stephen King’s 1408 but done in a darker tone because of the creepy rabbit corpse and the stinky bathroom tub filled with fetid, dirty water. Its also done better. Ohm does encounter something supernatural down in the basement and it helps him deal with the grief and guilt over his mother’s death.

At the end of the film, Ohm discovers that one of the employees had spiked his little bottle of alcohol with a drug that would make him hallucinate. Ohm realizes that this allowed his mind to open enough for him to experience what he experience down in the basement. This also makes the viewer question what really happened. Was he just high? It’s the red marks on Ohm’s wrists that convince him that what he experienced was real.

Ireland is one of my favorite places (I visited in 2024) and seeing that this film was shot on the Irish countryside really made me want to revisit. The hotel and the Halloween setting with the carved turnips and creepy miniature decorations around the hotel really set a spooky tone. By the time Ohm ends up trapped in the Honeymoon suite, we’ve already slow burned our way into feeling uneasy. This film is shot beautifully and the hotel was the perfect setting.

Adam Scott is certainly a vibe in this. The angry, grieving American who learns that how you treat people matters. He drink gets spiked because he was rude to one of the employees. He was nice to Fiona and she ended up saving his life after he tried to hang himself. And he has a sincere moment with the spirit of his mother that allows him to forgive himself and let go of his guilt.

That’s what this film really is about – letting go of your guilt and grief. Ohm isn’t the only character dealing with having been responsible for a loved one’s death and both characters go out of their way to save someone else knowing that it puts their own life at risk. The foreboding nature of the hotel and the slow burn style of filmmaking feels heavy much in the way that guilt does. That is where this film excels. I have a feeling that like Oddity, the more I watch this the more I will love it. Also, I might carve turnips this year instead of pumpkins. They really looked cool in this film.

3.5 out of 5 stars.