‘Hokum’ Review: An Atmospheric Tour de Force
An Irish folktale brought into modern day, there’s no ‘hogwash’ to be found in terms of the fear writer/director Damian McCarthy crafts.
It is unarguable that atmosphere is perhaps the most important tool in any horror filmmaker’s kit. Without it, the scares, no matter how ‘jumpy’, merely fall limp, or appear to be a cheap ploy to desperately scrounge up a reaction from the audience. While jump scares certainly have their place, true artists within the genre know how to keep you uneasy and terrified the entire time you’re seated. The recliner you’re lounging in at the new multiplex doesn’t allow you to get too comfortable, and many may simply use the extra space to ball themselves into the fetal position.
For many, that position came all too easy when watching Damian McCarthy’s ‘Oddity’, not his first film, but perhaps his calling card within the industry and certainly a film announcing his arrival within the horror genre. That film was undeniably unsettling more than anything, creating an atmosphere of pure tension throughout most of the film with set pieces that could merely sit there, stationary and exist, and it was enough to terrify you.
In ‘Hokum’, McCarthy repeats the same mastery of atmosphere. Perhaps a touch more animated than Oddity, it brilliantly crafts an environment of uncontaminated dread. Tapping into the unprecedented storytelling tradition of Ireland, and utilizing the rural wooded solitude of the Emerald Isle, McCarthy creates a real feeling of loneliness that is key to most of this film. That’s part of its charm, and certainly a key ingredient in the aforementioned atmosphere. The heritage of the film is extremely strong as well, you can almost smell the woods that entraps the boutique, rural hotel, the trees serving as bars to this fable-like prison, and adding to that feeling of being trapped. Those who have enjoyed McCarthy’s work will undoubtedly get the same pleasure out of Hokum as it once again feels like a modern fairy tale, complete with the ominous sensibility and moral the old tales often had.
Adam Scott, starring as Ohm Bauman, is predominantly the only company you have on this journey, and he isn’t exactly a warm and charming travel companion. When McCarthy sat down with FilmSpeak, he spoke of how much of a risk it was creating the character of Bauman because in terms of being a protagonist, he is extremely antagonistic. Horror films typically rely on relating to the main character, so we cheer for their survival. Bauman isn’t necessarily someone to cheer for, but he is a well-balanced, flawed and intriguing study of how someone can be haunted by inner demons long before entering an allegedly haunted hotel.
Hokum follows Bauman, a cynical, grief-stricken American author who travels to the aforementioned remote, rustic hotel in rural Ireland to scatter his parents' ashes. While struggling to finish his latest novel, the abrasive writer is forced to confront local folklore and his own traumatic past when he becomes obsessed with tales of a vengeful witch haunting the hotel's long-abandoned honeymoon suite. As a staff member goes missing, Ohm is drawn into a nightmarish investigation that merges chilling supernatural encounters with disturbing human secrets.
Those human aspects may in fact be the weakest portion of the film. While the caveat of kooky local characters certainly creates some interesting subplots within the film, the strength of the tale lies in the central haunting, and that doesn’t necessarily mean the witch that is locked away in the Honeymoon suite. Granted, the heart of the film stands firmly within the haunted hotel sub-genre, and McCarthy molds the expectations of that sub-genre beautifully beautifully creating a masterfully whimsical dark tale of young men being dragged into hell by the local witch, but it is the dark recesses of Bauman’s soul that is the real haunting story. There are major story beats that reveal just how depressed his character is, and much like a lot of modern horror, the subtext of mental health being the real horror begins to take control of the film. Scott, obviously known for comedic turns in films such as ‘Stepbrothers’ and his tenure on ‘Parks and Recreation’ once again shows off his strength within dramatic aspects of the film. The rest of the characters really serve as fodder, either to be dispatched as you would expect in a horror film, or plot devices to push the narrative forward. McCarthy has already proven with Oddity that he can create a lonely horror film, and feeling alone heightens every sense of the audience, as if we ourselves are being hunted. Being alone with Bauman, who is curious by nature, is to truly feel alone, mostly because of how the character is so standoffish with everyone around him. This wasn’t as much of a risk as McCarthy would make it out to be, because he and Scott have created a truly interesting and damaged character, but even if you don’t relate to him, it works for the horror aspects of the film.
Hokum has all the fixings of a claustrophobic nightmare, one where you cannot escape, you cannot see a way out, and the walls of the setting have literally soaked up hopelessness. There are long stretches of tension that carry over throughout the entire film, and that is truly how you craft cinematic atmosphere. It isn’t merely about the setting, it is that sense of unease twisting the knot in your neck. Even if it’s a time where the film isn’t ramping up the horror, there’s still an uneasy feeling about it. McCarthy did that with Oddity, and he did that again, arguably more so, with Hokum. This film isn’t for those who necessarily want jump scares, but this writer will admit that there were a couple that surprised him, and yes, actually caused a jump, but it is never attempting to be that kind of film. If you’ve seen McCarthy’s work, and you’ve been a fan of it in the past, you’ll realize, as mentioned, that’s not the kind of horror he’s trying to create.
The witch genre, at least in the opinion of this writer, is so seldom terrifying. Granted there’s something primordial about it, as those tales have permeated storytelling history before we even had the written word, but that isn’t what Hokum is truly about. The film even not-so-subtly makes you doubt parts of the story in a brilliant twist of the narrative, but what you are left with is a really damaged and hollow character. Batman’s soul, and therefore the soul of the film is what is the more frightening ‘dark basement corner’.