Damian McCarthy’s “Hokum” casts around itself an unease that is somehow both warm and sticky, as we are being drowned in a vat of succulent honey. The third film by the Irish-born filmmaker, “Hokum” shares a kinship with folklore that feels borderline alien to an American audience, for whom myths feel like remnants of a long forgotten past, figments from a less industrialized age that we’ve grown out of via the transfiguratory power of assimilation. In the great melting pot of cultural malaise, our monsters, themselves often born of people trying to make sense of a world fallen into madness, have lost their bite and have evolved into mere curiosities more apt to be found at a farmer’s market art stand than a child’s nightmare. Yet, at least in McCarthy’s stories, Ireland is a bastion for the otherworldly, the weird, and the cruel; where damned creatures older than man slink along some backwater of existence, invisible to those who cannot bother to look up from their cell phones long enough to see what is stalking them. Much like Adam Scott’s author character in “Hokum”, we prefer our worlds smaller, simpler, and safer; our demons haunt us via a bottle, and in that confinement, we imagine a certain level of control. Silly Americans, there’s nothing that can save you from what’s out there. McCarthy, thankfully, has no such diminutive a view. Instead, he pries open the calcified cavities we all foster deep inside, the place of ourselves that once believed witches lay hidden in crawl spaces and demonic rabbits watched vigil as we slept, and giddily unleashes the monsters to roam free.
“Hokum” begins with author Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) struggling to finish his much-anticipated novel while on a trip to a small hotel in the Irish countryside. He despises being here, yet there is a deeper purpose. This hotel was where his parents honeymooned, and he means to lay their ashes at the root of a nearby tree. Having arrived at the hotel, the crusty nature of country superstitions is unavoidable as he watches the aging owner of the hotel regale a pair of frightened young boys with the tale of a wood witch that snatches unsuspecting travelers in chains and drags them into Hell. Unbothered by the stories, yet quite annoyed by all the hullabaloo, Ohm does what he came to do and settles in at the hotel bar that night to drink away whatever demons he holds dear. The bartender, Fiona (Florence Ordesh), clues him in on the local legends of the hotel, namely that the honeymoon suite has been locked for decades because the owner says he trapped a witch inside. She is eager to venture up and see for herself, and even plans to bring chalk to protect her in case the witch is, in fact, real. Even the bellboy has a story of seeing the old crone leering at him from the elevator. “Hokum”, decries Ohm as he finishes his whiskey. But he shouldn’t be so quick to discount folklore. Through a series of catastrophic events, Fiona ends up saving Ohm’s life, leaving him in a local hospital for weeks. Upon returning to the hotel, Ohm wishes to thank Fiona but is told that she has gone missing. The authorities have not been able to find her in the forest or in the hotel. It’s as if she just disappeared, yet nobody has dared look in the honeymoon suite. Spurned by guilt, Ohm finds himself lurking through the hotel, now shuttered for the season, to reach the haunted room that no soul has entered in a generation in search of a woman who might very well be dead; a crusade that will bring him in direct conflict with that which he does not believe to be real.
McCarthy’s style of horror, as evidenced by his incredible previous film “Oddity”, is a simple one; an almost matter-of-fact presentation of the monstrous found in the course of everyday life. For him, ghosts and witches may be grotesque, but they are also as common as mountain goats along the hills of Ireland, a species whose homeland we humans have invaded at our own peril. Adam Scott as Ohm is the ideal avatar for the audience, a disbelieving, drunk American who cares little for his own safety, driven only by a looming sense of cosmic justice to bring back the person who once did him a kindness. His skeptical author is just another in a long line of humbug-spouting writers throughout fiction who wander haplessly into obviously haunted hotels, thinking they can conquer the unknowable; the most prominent being Jack Torrance from “The Shining” but also Mike Enslin from my beloved “1408”. The genre of hotel-based horror is a fruitful one, and while McCarthy has more than a few references to Kubrick’s classic thrown in, it is the manner in which he allows Ohm to be smart, insightful, and industrious that makes “Hokum” more than a jolting fright fest but an engaging story that is, somehow, hopeful. At one point early in the film, Ohm describes to Fiona the ending of his latest book, that of a Conquistador wandering the desert in search of some lost treasure or unknowable enlightenment. The ending is dour, nihilistic, and Fiona actively hates it. To this, Ohm raises a toast to “bleak endings”, which feels like McCarthy throwing a knowing wink over his shoulder at us. While “Oddity” was indeed a harrowing experience, perhaps the scariest film of its year, its ending certainly was a downer. But, while “Hokum” is brutal in its own way and does not commit the sin of recent horror where characters are unbloodied and walk away unscathed, enriched only by the power of friendship, there is some light to be found at the end of this crucible, making for a story that feels like a maturation of McCarthy’s style of terror into something more potent and lasting than even the most deftly orchestrated jump scare. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
“Hokum” isn’t just a fantastic horror film, filled with creeping dread and scares that jolt, but is one of those special movies that settles with you long after you have left the theater, driven home, and curled up under the covers with all the lights turned dark. There’s nothing in the dark, right? Keep telling yourself that. We live in a universe of witches and killers, whether you can see them lurking or not. They’ll get us all in the end, one way or another, and you can be sure there will be no fanfare…except for the screams, of course.
Sleep well, but if I were you, I’d keep some chalk handy and a nightlight on.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Hokum” is playing at The Broad Theater and Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
