[HorrorScience] Hokum: When a bitter writer meets an Irish witch

Hokumstarts by introducing us toOhm Bauman(Adam Scott), a successful novelist who, however, is more bitter than a burnt, unsweetened coffee. The man is stuck with the end of his successful Pathfinder trilogy, a work that seems as dark as his own personality. It's not that he's simply experiencing a creative block: his mother's ghost appears to him at home, a vision that unsettles him enough to decide to escape to Ireland. His plan: visit theBilberry Woods Hotel, the remote rural settlement where his parents spent their honeymoon, and scatter his ashes there. Grief, trauma, and the need to heal wounds fuel this journey, but Ohm is not a tragic, sensitive hero. It's a guyarrogant, dry and deeply unpleasant.

From the moment he arrives at the hotel reception, his attitude is an insurmountable wall. The owner,cob (Brendan Conroy), is there telling a scary legend to two guest children: the story ofCailleach, a witch who stalked the region centuries ago and who was locked forever in the hotel's bridal suite. The room, according to the story, remains boarded up and forbidden. Ohm listens to the story without much interest, but something about that legend sticks in his mind, perhaps because he himself is a horror writer and he can't stop certain images from running through his head.

Hotel staff includes Evil (Peter Coonan), Cob's son-in-law, who runs the front desk; Alby (Will O'Connell), the bellboy; and Fiona (Florence Ordesh), the bar waitress. He treats them all with the same cutting distance, as if he were making a superhuman effort not to tell them to go to hell.

The only person he even remotely connects with is Jerry (David Wilmot), a peculiar guy who lives in a van in the woods and spends his days drinking milk shakes with hallucinogenic mushrooms. On one of his walks to spread his parents' ashes, Ohm meets Jerry, and a friendship as unexpected as it is strange arises between the two. Moving on another frequency, Jerry becomes a kind of lysergic spirit guide and the only person Ohm's curmudgeon seems to like.

The night everything changes: the suicide attempt and Fiona's disappearance

That first night, after dinner, Ohm ends up at the bar. Fiona tends to him. It's not a particularly long or deep conversation, but there's something about it that makes him open up a little and talk something about his mother and father. Perhaps it's also the effect of the alcohol, since Ohm is clearly looking to get drunk. Alby, the bellboy, also appears in the middle, a fan of his and eager to become a writer as well, but, as we see from the beginning, Ohm is quite disgusting in his treatment of others and Alby gets the worst of it.

But that same night, something in Ohm breaks definitively. Alone in his room, in the middle of the darkness, he decides he can't take it anymore. He ties a sheet around his neck, attaches it to a ceiling beam and lets himself fall. He doesn't have time to die because Fiona, with no one else left in the bar, decides to go to Ohm's room to bring him some things that he forgot at the bar. As he knocks on the door several times and no one answers, he asks Alby, who was hanging around the hallways, to open the door with his keys, since he has a bad feeling. He finds it hanging, screams and together with Alby they pick it up. Ohm is alive, but ruined.

The writer ends up admitted to a nearby hospital. There he spends a few days recovering, probably with more questions than answers about why he is still alive. When he is finally discharged and returns to the Bilberry Woods Hotel, something has changed. They are closing for the season. The atmosphere is more tense. Two police officers leave reception after having spoken with Mal. And then, Ohm finds out the news:Fiona has disappeared. No one has heard from her since the night after Ohm's suicide attempt. The staff, in an exercise in unsubtle deduction, points to Jerry as the prime suspect. But Ohm doesn't believe it. His friend the hermit, strange as he may be, is not a murderer. Something darker is happening.

The investigation, the witch and the secret of the basement

From there,HokumIt becomes an investigation halfway between psychological thriller and supernatural terror. Ohm, feeling indebted to Fiona (after all, she saved his life), decides to find out what happened to her. Your only clue is the famous bridal suite. Because since Fiona disappeared, something doesn't add up: no one wants to talk about that room, no one goes near the boarded-up door, and yet Ohm is convinced that the answer is hidden there.

With the help of Jerry, who seems to have a special relationship with the forest and its secrets, Ohm manages to sneak into the honeymoon suite. What he finds inside is not a satanic altar, but something more disturbing: arusty forkliftthat descends to the basement of the hotel. And in the basements, in the darkness, the witch waits. TheCailleachShe is neither a decrepit old woman nor a beautiful woman; He is a physical presence, with a distorted face, but he also does not act like a bloodthirsty monster. The witch watches. Judge. And, when the time comes, act.

Ohm's investigation leads him to discover the truth about Fiona: she wasn't taken by the witch. he killed herEvil, the receptionist. Fiona was pregnant with him, the result of an affair that Mal could not allow to come to light. He drugged her, put her in the elevator, and abandoned her in the basement, knowing that there is no way to make the elevator go back up if you are already down. Fiona was left in the dark, without food or drink, and with a presence lurking in the basement. The presence of the witch.

What the witch teaches Ohm (and what he needed to hear)

But the witch also confronts Ohm. And this is where the film takes an unexpected emotional turn. The Cailleach knows that Ohm killed his mother when he was a child, playing with his father's gun. That accident has haunted him for decades, turning him into the bitter and self-destructive person he is. The witch could take him too, could condemn him to the same abyss as Mal. But she doesn't. Ohm faces his guilt, accepts it, asks for forgiveness (even though his mother is no longer around to hear it), and, for the first time in his life, allows himself to feel something other than anger or self-loathing. The witch lets him go.

The ending is unexpectedly hopeful for a Damian McCarthy film (remember the somber endings ofCaveatandOddity). Ohm returns home, writes the end of his novel, and seems to have found a peace that he had been searching for years. It is not a typical happy ending, but it is an ending that leaves you with a bittersweet feeling and, above all, with the certainty that even the most broken can have a second chance.

Terror, folklore and a question that haunts you

What I value most aboutHokumIt's how McCarthy integrates real Irish folklore without falling into cheap folklorism. TheCailleachShe is an authentic figure from Celtic mythology, the "crone" who rules winter, who hits the ground with her hammer to freeze the earth and who is venerated as a goddess of death and fertility. In the film, the witch is neither good nor evil: she is a force of nature who applies justice according to her own rules. If you're guilty, he takes you. If you are able to recognize your guilt and repent, he lets you live. That ambiguity seems like a success to me.

Adam Scott borda el papel de Ohm. Es difícil hacer que un personaje tan antipático te importe, y él lo consigue. Su transformación de amargado insufrible a hombre quebrado que busca redimirse está bien medida. Los secundarios cumplen, especialmente David Wilmot como Jerry, que aporta el contrapunto cómico sin desentonar.

Técnicamente, la película es impecable. La fotografía convierte los paisajes irlandeses en un personaje más, con esos verdes oscuros y cielos plomizos que parecen estar a punto de descargar una tormenta en cualquier momento. La banda sonora deJoseph Bishara(el compositor habitual de James Wan enExpediente WarreneInsidious) juega con frecuencias bajas y susurros procesados que generan una inquietud constante. Y el montacargas, ese ascensor oxidado que conecta la suite nupcial con los sótanos, es uno de esos espacios que se te quedan grabados en la memoria.

And then the question arises: was it real or were it the mushrooms?

Hay un detalle que me encanta deHokumy que la convierte en una película para ver dos veces: la posibilidad de que todo lo sobrenatural sea una alucinación colectiva provocada por las setas. Porque Jerry, el ermitaño, bebe un batido con sus hongos mágicos. Y Alby, el botones al que Ohm quema la mano con una cuchara caliente en un ataque de ira, le añade setas a su whisky por venganza. Así que todo lo que Ohm experimenta —la bruja, la suite nupcial, el montacargas, las visiones de su madre— podría ser fruto de una intoxicación psicodélica masiva. O no. La película no te da una respuesta clara, y esa ambigüedad es lo que la hace más interesante.

¿Que si recomiendoHokum? Sí, sin dudarlo. No es una película para todos los públicos: su ritmo es pausado, su protagonista es insoportable durante buena parte del metraje y el giro final hacia el drama emocional puede decepcionar a quienes busquen solo sustos. Pero si te gusta el terror que te incomoda más que sobresaltarte y que tiene una capa de folklore real bien integrada,Hokumte va a gustar.

Six curiosities about Hokum that you probably didn't know

• El final era mucho más cruel: Damian McCarthy confesó que el guion original terminaba con Ohm atrapado para siempre en el sótano del hotel, condenado a repetir el ciclo de culpa eternamente. Lo cambió durante el montaje porque le pareció demasiado punitivo y porque quería que la gente tuviera motivos para volver a ver la película.
• El montacargas casi acaba con la carrera de Adam Scott: Para rodar las escenas del ascensor oxidado, el equipo construyó una réplica a escala real que podía inclinarse peligrosamente. Adam Scott pasó horas allí dentro y, según confesó en una entrevista, juró que nunca volvería a meterse en un ascensor pequeño después del rodaje.
• La Cailleach está basada en una diosa celta real: McCarthy investigó a fondo el folklore irlandés. La Cailleach (literalmente «la vieja») es una figura de la mitología gaélica que controla el invierno y el clima. Se dice que golpea el suelo con su martillo para congelar la tierra y que cada año renace en Samhain (el origen celta de Halloween).
• El hotel donde se rodó tiene fama de estar embrujado: La producción utilizó un hotel abandonado en el condado de Mayo, al oeste de Irlanda. El equipo de sonido aseguró haber captado pasos y susurros durante las tomas nocturnas, aunque McCarthy prefiere no confirmar ni desmentir si fue real o efecto del cansancio.
• Cameo oculto deOddity: McCarthy escondió un pequeño guiño a su película anterior,Oddity(2024), en alguna parte del hotel. Según el director, es tan sutil que ni los fans más obsesivos lo han detectado a la primera. No reveló dónde está, pero invita a los espectadores a convertirlo en una especie de «búsqueda del tesoro».
• El significado del título:Hokumes una palabra del argot anglosajón que significa «patraña», «tontería» o «disparate». McCarthy la eligió para reflejar el escepticismo inicial de Ohm hacia la leyenda de la bruja, y también como un guiño irónico a las propias películas de terror, que a menudo son consideradas «hokum» por la crítica más snob.