The idea of burying his parents’ remains in the grave of a man turns into something much darker. But by the end of Hokum, you are left with only two options – either fear or sympathy, and you can’t be sure if the threat is emanating from the haunted corridors or from the haunted Ohm Bauman himself.
Hokum review: Plot summary
Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a famous American writer who is suffering from a case of writer’s block and some trauma he can’t seem to shake. He goes to the countryside of Ireland and buries his parents’ remains near the Bilberry Woods Hotel, where his parents honeymooned. However, something is rather amiss as soon as he walks in.
The hotel itself breathes unease. It has people that look sideways at each other, time stands still in its hallways, and a secretive honeymoon room is off-limits. Ohm is arrogant and emotionally unavailable and disregards all the warnings until everything around him turns bizarre, people vanish, and he is plagued by the quietest of whispers from the dark.
The following is a slow-burning descent into fear. Damian McCarthy is not an impulsive risk-taker. Rather, he gradually establishes a tone that is filled with sadness and suspicion. Each corridor seems to be haunted; each silence is charged with threat. The film plays with your perceptions throughout, and the supernatural horror and human evil are side by side, bleeding into one another.
Yes, there are jump scares, but Hokum breezes through them like a cool breeze, avoiding the carnival ride of loud noises and cheap scares. The fright around here is more subtle. More patient. More invasive.
Hokum review: Performances
Adam Scott delivers one of the most unexpectedly compelling performances of his career. Ohm is very unpleasant for most of the film: rude, emotionally empty, and self-pitying. But somehow, Scott is exposed in the midst of bitterness. While some might find his deadpan expression frustrating, it does help to add to the emotional breakdown of the character. It’s never clear if he is concealing guilt or just giving in to it.
Florence Ordesh is eerie as the hotel bartender Fiona, a woman who somehow manages to soften the film’s icy atmosphere. With a minimal amount of screen time, she is the heart of the story.
David Wilmot is outstanding as Jerry, the enigmatic wanderer who seems to have had his troubles and his whisky in a more Irish than Irish folk tale. Peter Coonan and Michael Patric provide good support, and Brendan Conroy’s eerie hotel owner is another source of discomfort in a very uncomfortable film.
However, Damian McCarthy’s direction is the real reason for this. He makes the Bilberry Woods Hotel come to life. The creaking floors, dimly lit corridors, peeling wallpaper, and lingering shadows all work together to create a setting that feels cursed long before the ghosts even arrive.
WTF: Where’s the flaw?
Even though it’s a masterpiece in the air, from time to time Hokum gets lost in its own fog. There are sections that have a very slow tempo, particularly the middle sections that revolve around the mystery without providing enough momentum.
The emotional core with regard to Ohm’s traumatic past also comes too late. The effect is somewhat muted when the film finally ties up its loose ends and details the origins of his guilt. There’s one that waits for the screenplay to explode with emotions, but it’s restrained almost to perfection.
There’s also the issue of accessibility. The use of ambiguity and fractured storytelling is a signature style of McCarthy and could prove alienating to viewers looking for more straightforward horror. Some crucial conversations are difficult to follow, and without subtitles, a few dialogues risk getting lost entirely beneath accents and hushed delivery.
And while the film’s minimalist approach to horror is admirable, the background score occasionally overcompensates, announcing fear instead of allowing silence to do the damage.
Hokum review: Final verdict
Hokum unfolds like a cursed folk song whispered through the walls of an abandoned hotel. Grief, guilt, loneliness and the horrid thought that there may be wounds that never heal exist in its shadows.
Damian McCarthy does not make horror out of something that’s entertaining; he makes it out of something that’s corrosive. The film stumbles in places, sometimes mistaking vagueness for depth, yet its atmosphere remains hypnotically unsettling. Even when the story falters, the mood never does.
It’s not horror for the sake of popcorn screams and viral reactions. It’s a horror that lingers. Horror that quietly follows you home.
Along its ghostly hallways and broken hearts, Hokum has a message for us: the scariest hauntings are the ones that live in us.