Written and directed by Damian McCarthy, Hokum is a haunting psychological thriller that mixes horror, grief and psychological trauma into one deeply unsettling story. The film stars Adam Scott as the lead, and features acclaimed author Ohm Bauman in the story of the author, who struggles to complete the last chapter of his novel trilogy, Conquistador, while battling guilt and personal demons he can’t seem to shake.
Set in the unnerving world of a remote Irish hotel, Hokum explores loss, trauma and the fine line between supernatural horror and psychological collapse. By the time the credits roll, viewers are left wondering what was real and what was only inside Ohm’s fractured mind.
Why does Ohm go to the Bilberry Woods Hotel?
At the start of the film, Ohm is drowning in grief, alcoholism and creative fatigue. He’s trying to write a dark epilogue to his trilogy, but keeps being haunted by visions of his dead mother.
Desiring closure, Ohm travels to Ireland, to the Bilberry Woods Hotel, the same place where his parents honeymooned. His goal is simple: spread their ashes and finally come to terms with their death.
In the hotel he meets bartender Fiona, bellhop Alby, and a mysterious drifter named Jerry. Soon, Ohm learns disturbing tales of the hotel’s infamous honeymoon suite, where locals believe a witch has been trapped for decades.
Why Does Ohm Try To Kill Himself?
Ohm is consumed by guilt and unprocessed trauma as his mental state deteriorates. One night he tries to commit suicide in his hotel room.
Luckily Fiona finds him in time and Ohm is rushed to the hospital.
He’s alive in the physical sense, but going back to the hotel is the beginning of an even darker psychological decline.
Ohm Leaves the Hospital – What Does He Do?
A few days later Ohm is told that Fiona has disappeared.
Mal, the owner’s son-in-law of the hotel, blames Jerry for it. He also reveals Jerry’s scary past, saying he killed his wife.
Ohm, suspicious of Mal’s story, confronts Jerry. But Jerry has no malice, just the facts: The last person seen going into the haunted honeymoon suite was Fiona.
Ohm and Jerry break into the hotel to investigate, determined to find answers.
Explaining Jerry’s Confession
In the course of their investigation Jerry admits that he did kill his wife – but not in cold blood.
He tells us that she was dying, and in a great deal of pain. “It was a kindness to kill her,” Jerry said.
This admission echoes one of Hokum’s overriding themes: guilt from painful choices.
Groundskeeper Fergal takes Jerry into custody for a while but Jerry escapes and returns to the hotel to help Ohm.
What Actually Happened to Fiona?
Ohm finds Fiona’s body shoved in a dumbwaiter in the honeymoon suite.
On a tape recorder the horrifying truth is revealed.
Fiona had been unfaithful to Mal and was pregnant with his child. Mal, fearing Cob and his family would find out about the affair, drugged Fiona and kept her in the suite where she died.
This revelation changes the film from a ghost story to a murder mystery but it still maintains its supernatural tension.
Ohm’s childhood trauma disclosed
The hauntings intensify, and Ohm starts to remember repressed memory.
He remembers accidentally shooting his mother as a child with his father’s gun. And he also feels his father’s death later in life was somehow his fault.
His mother’s ghost haunts him throughout the movie, and these memories are the reason why.
Her presence feels less like a conventional haunting and more like his unresolved guilt.
What does happen to Jerry?
Jerry returns to help Ohm escape, but Mal strikes him before he can reach Ohm.
One of the most brutal scenes in the movie is when Mal shoots Jerry in the head with a crossbow, killing him instantly.
Jerry’s death feels symbolic. His last act is to try to save another broken soul, perhaps atoning for his own past.
Mal’s Fate?
After killing Jerry, Mal tries to burn down the hotel to destroy all evidence.
He follows Ohm down into the basement, where the supernatural things in the story come into their own.
A strange witch-like being appears, chains Mal and pulls him into the dark.
This is left purposely vague as to whether it is a real supernatural event or some other psychological manifestation.
Mal is later reported missing and no body is ever found.
Is Ohm running from the hotel?
Ohm, trapped in the basement, surrounded by fire, has one last confrontation with his mother’s spirit.
This time it’s the apology he’s carried for decades, not the fear he gives her.
Ohm is able to break free from the emotional chains that have defined his life when he accepts that her death was accidental and forgives himself.
His mother’s spirit guides him to an escape route through the fire exit, and he escapes as the hotel bursts into flames.
Hokum’s End?
Alby visits Ohm at the hospital and reveals to him something shocking, that he had been secretly lacing Ohm’s alcohol with mushroom powder the entire time he was there.
This admission changes everything.
If Ohm was tripping on acid, how much of what he saw was real?
But there are also physical scars on his wrists from being chained up in the basement, which suggests some of what he went through was real.
At the end of the movie, Ohm goes back to his manuscript and rewrites the ending of his novel.
He chooses hope over tragedy.
He is no longer writing from guilt, but from acceptance, for the first time.
Breaking Down the Supernatural
The biggest question in Hokum is whether the witch is real or not?
The film is deliberately non-committal.
On the one hand, the hauntings, visions and supernatural encounters could be accounted for as:
Psychedelic drugs
- Alcohol addiction
Serious injury
Repressed childhood memories
Psychological collapse related to suicide
On the other hand, there are various incidents, namely Mal’s disappearance and Ohm’s physical injuries, which hint that something supernatural may have been lurking all along.
It’s this ambiguity that makes Hokum so powerful.
This film uses horror as a metaphor for guilt, trauma, addiction, and self-forgiveness, instead of just ghosts and witches.
In the end, the victory is not in surviving the haunted hotel, it’s in Ohm finally learning to live with his past.