Hokum means pretentious nonsense, the kind of thing you don’t need to take seriously even if it sounds true. Examples of it are everywhere: superstitions, urban legends, and witches.
Well, if they aren’t true, then there’s no reason for a successful writer like Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) to pay attention to them. Besides, he’s too busy finishing the epilogue of his Conquistador trilogy and he’s got no time for such things.
But Ohm finds himself quietly drawn to bellhop Alby’s (Will O’Connell) claim that the hotel’s owner Cob (Brendan Conroy) trapped a witch in the Honeymoon Suite. The bartender Fiona (Florence Ordesh) somewhat believes Alby, and as a matter of fact, she even has a book about witches in her possession. Meanwhile, the keys to the suite are with the owner’s son-in-law and front desk clerk Mal (Peter Coonan), who is hellbent on ensuring no one enters that room.
Ohm is not entirely a non-believer when it comes to the supernatural. To a certain degree, he believes in it. He actually travelled to The Bilberry Woods Hotel after the ghost of his mother visited him. It struck him that it was probably a message to spread her and her husband’s ashes in the woods near the place where they honeymooned.
He obliged out of respect for his parents, even if he had a complicated relationship with them.
While in the woods, Ohm meets an odd man named Jerry (David Wilmot). He’s odd because he lives there and he drinks milk laced with magic mushrooms. He says it makes him see unearthly creatures. Okay, sure.
Some time later, after an incident that befalls Ohm at the hotel, he returns to discover that Fiona has gone missing and Jerry is the prime suspect. Ohm confronts Jerry, who denies the accusation but then tells him that he saw her one night, directing him toward the honeymoon suite.
Ohm knows that the honeymoon suite is off limits, but Fiona had shown great interest in exploring it. She might be there. To find out, he sneaks into the forbidden room and there he discovers that the hotel was hiding something far darker.
After watching Hokum, my mind immediately goes to the discussion and false dichotomy that jump scares are signs of lazy filmmaking. The case in point are elevated horrors that rely on dreadful atmosphere rather than unexpected peekaboos. But all educated critics, cinephiles, and scholars know that is not entirely true. If we look back at history, the truly great ones are those that are able to balance both sudden scares and relentless unease.
Hokum comes to mind in this discourse because the film is more or less an elevated horror that dives into guilt, grief, and trauma. But at the same time, it is really good with the timing of catching viewers off guard. The jump scares will make you jump and scared! They are also used sparingly, and I think that is one of the film’s best decisions, since it avoids overuse and evades audience desensitization.
Beyond its horror mechanics, the film’s gothic appeal works well with its folkloric story. At its core, it is more of a ghost story and a haunted house film than a film about witches. Yet the witch of Bilberry Wood’s value never diminishes, because she operates less as a character and more as a convergence point. She’s the spectator, the judge, and the executioner of the film. Essentially, she’s the whole court wherein the characters’ moral reckoning meets.
Although the witch is impressive as this representation for karma and an inevitable force, the film never really explores her mythology. It is not much of an issue to me, honestly, since it appears the film is much more concerned with the human side of the story. But I do believe that a few minutes getting us acquainted with this creature would be more value-adding than useless padding.
Overall, Hokum is more interesting to me as a folklore horror than as an exploration of Ohm’s inability to reconcile with his childhood trauma. I am not saying it is a terrible aspect of the film — it is actually quite the contrary. The unhealed wound of Ohm stands as a firm backbone of the story. But the legend of the witch and how she is tied into the narrative is a far more intriguing quality of the film. Frankly, I would rather watch her punish the guilty than sit through hours of psychological deep-diving into the mind of the protagonist.
3.5/5
Now showing in cinemas.