It takes a bit of courage, or perhaps audacity, to give the title ‘Hokum‘ to a commercially distributed film. The noun ‘hokum’, which I learned on this occasion, has a few different meanings: it means ‘nonsense’ or ‘just plain nonsense’ but also defines a cheap theatrical or cinematic device, designed to attract the audience’s attention in order to create a calculated reaction from the start. Irish director and screenwriter Damian McCarthy gives his films enigmatic one-word titles. ‘Hokum‘ is his third consecutive film to follow this convention, and all belong to the horror genre, using elements of Irish folklore, rich in ghosts, mysteries and supernatural creatures. The stakes are a bit higher in this film, which is an Irish production with American and Emirati financing.
The hero of the film, named Ohm Bauman, is an American novelist and a very unsympathetic guy. He travels to Ireland for the first time in his life to bury his parents’ ashes in the place where they had spent their honeymoon, perhaps the happiest time of their lives. He is hosted at the inn where they had also lived, perhaps using the bridal suite that is locked by the owner because it is haunted by ghosts. The hero’s antisocial behavior – perhaps due to a creative crisis in search of the end of a trilogy of novels or perhaps due to childhood traumas – and excessive consumption of whiskey lead him to an attempted suicide. When he wakes up, he discovers that the hotel barmaid who saved his life has disappeared. The hotel is rumored to be haunted, with strange characters roaming around. Are the supernatural phenomena that all the locals seem to believe in ‘hokum’, or are they part of a reality that you have to believe in order to understand?
Adam Scott delivers a remarkable performance as an atypical anti-hero for horror films. Viewers will have difficulty identifying with his character, at least at first, but as the story progresses, some of the reasons for his behavior will become clearer. The cinematography combines gloomy tones with a not always clear image, and the hotel building where most of the story takes place looks like a combination of the exterior of ‘Psycho’ and the interiors of ‘The Shining’. The elements of Irish folklore are not very well highlighted, but perhaps that’s for the best, because too many rational explanations could harm the mystery. This film is not for those who consider supernatural phenomena to be just ‘hokum’. You have to believe in them, at least as an artistic convention, like fairies and ogres in fairy tales. For many viewers who accept conventions or even believe in them, ‘Hokum‘ can be a delight.