Film Review - Hokum
Images courtesy of Roadshow Films.
“Long, long ago, deep in the woods, there lived an old Cailleach... a witch.” warns Jerry, the local outcast of grim fable Hokum. After a few years of steadily growing momentum directing features Oddity (2024) and Caveat (2020) for horror streaming service Shudder, McCarthy’s latest finds its way onto the silver screen, with the added star power of Adam Scott (Severance, Parks and Recreation, Madame Web, and personal favourite, Piranha 3D).
The film follows Scott’s Ohm Bauman, an American writer famous for his pulpy adventure novels, as he makes the pilgrimage to a dusty Irish hotel in order to spread his parents’ ashes. It turns out ghost stories and alcohol are not much of a fun mix (nor is vagrant Jerry’s offers of psychedelic mushroom milk), and before too long, there's a missing member of the hotel staff. As the jerkish Bauman tentatively gets involved, he is forced to reckon with his troubled past, amidst bar stories of a witch in the honeymoon suite, where his parents once stayed.
With its predominantly Irish cast and gorgeous rural setting, the story plays nicely to McCarthy's strengths in blending mystery with an authentic sense of local folklore. There's a real earnestness to the film, wherein brief spats of dark humour serve to add levity to the horror elements buried underneath. Jumpscares come frequently, but are orchestrated in such a fun and engaging way that I couldn't help but see this use of audio as more in line with the classics of Hammer and Hitchcock, rather than the typical modern horror fare. Something about how the film uses lighting to set these up feels operatic and tasteful, with McCarthy often paying meticulous attention to his signature spooky props in order to prepare for a scare, occasionally subverting so the audience exhales in unison.
The mystery is the real focus of the film, though, and not unlike Oddity and Caveat before it, Hokum unravels in deliberate bursts, changing momentum to allow the cramped interiors of the Bilberry Woods Hotel to breathe in subtly different moods. The terror spreads outwards to echo a variety of familiar subgenres, even briefly taking a swing at nostalgia-tinted mascot horror. Some of these shifts come at the expense of the viewer’s investment, with a few reveals relying on connections between characters that are otherwise relatively flat. This is where Hokum wobbles a little - the emotional stakes don't always rise to meet the escalating supernatural ones. Even Adam Scott’s performance comes off as unbelievable in the opening act, though thankfully, as the film progresses and he's forced to carry more of the mood solo, this feeling dissipates.
The film's title refers to something that is untrue or otherwise hard to believe. In that sense, the narrative comes full circle by reminding viewers of the importance of storytelling in all its forms, bookending its runtime with imaginatory scenes of the creative process Bauman goes through writing his final novel. Hokum is a tall tale woven by an exciting up-and-coming auteur in the horror space, with McCarthy bringing an admirable style of filmmaking that manages to feel both traditional and refreshing.
Follow Eli on Letterboxd, Twitter/X and Instagram.
Hokum is screening in cinemas now.