Recommendations of the Editorial team
Everyone has their demons. Writers, admittedly, have more of that than most – and writers in film? Forget it. They are a walking seventh circle of hell. “Hokum” first offers a glimpse into the fiction of a tormented author before introducing the man behind the keyboard. A conquistador wanders through a barren desert. A child, his face smeared with dirt, drags behind him. There is a treasure map in a bottle. The only way to get them out: break the bottle. But what about? The Lost One sets his gaze on the only thing hard enough to break glass – the boy’s skull. Yeah, that’s, well, pretty dark.
The prologue is a feint – spoiler: this is not a film about conquistadors – but it does outline the shattered state of mind of the “hero” in Damian McCarthy’s strangely eerie tale of what troubles the psyche. The author of this imagined confrontation is Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott), and the scene he hammers out on a stormy night is the finale of his popular trilogy of novels about a Spanish warrior. The books brought him enough fame to be recognized on the street – but they didn’t cure his existential woes. Two urns labeled “Mom” and “Dad” sit on his mantel. A wooden box containing a stubby revolver seems to strangely captivate him.
There is also a faded, crumpled photo of Ohm’s late mother as a young woman – standing next to a large copper beech tree in the Irish landscape. He remembers her describing this place as her happiness. So, hoping for something like inner peace, he travels deep into the forests of the Emerald Isle, carrying his parents’ ashes with him. He books a room at the Billberry Woods Hotel, where his parents once spent their honeymoon. The atmosphere: somewhere between a time-honored hunting lodge and a tranquil country inn. In the lobby, the elderly owner scares children with stories about a witch who once wreaked havoc on the site. The bridal suite is closed. It’s a long story.
An anti-hero with abysses
The thing about Ohm is… well, aside from being plagued with problems, he’s a bit of an asshole. This is also a long story that “Hokum” fills in little by little. Nevertheless, this misanthrope develops a certain affection for Fiona (Florence Ordesh), the woman who takes him to his room and runs the hotel bar. Then something tragic happens. When Ohm is released from the hospital a month later and returns to the Billberry, the manager (Peter Coonan) tells him that the place is empty – they are closing for the season. Ohm also learns that Fiona has been missing for several weeks. And the police are looking for a tramp (David Wilmot) who lives in the nearby forest and may know what happened to her.
McCarthy’s previous film, “Oddity” (2024), also revolved around a mystery, a missing woman and all sorts of supernatural events in symbolically shadowy hallways and dark corners – only in the end the whole thing fell short of the sum of its shocking moments. This eerie swansong to “The Shining” feels as if the Irish writer and director had this time developed a better sense of the suspense that the genre needs and of the balance between stark shocks and underlying horror. Scott may still be associated with comedy, but two seasons of Severance have proven that he can go dark when necessary. “Hokum” demands exactly that from him – and also allows him to fully exploit the repulsive sides of his character. He should use the genre more often.
The title, by the way, refers to Ohm’s opinion on Irish folklore surrounding supernatural phenomena that local people take at face value. Let’s put it this way: his attitude towards it changes fundamentally by the end credits. It’s also worth keeping in mind that malevolent spirits often seem pale next to the human monsters in our midst – although you should never underestimate a good yarn about crazy witches and centuries-old curses. Sometimes your own demons kill you. And sometimes these demons are less metaphorical than one would like.