Hokum (2026) Review 🐰

A Depressed Writer, A Haunted Hotel, And Damian McCarthy’s Creepy Bunny Problem

Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

Content Warning ⚠️

This review discusses heavy subject matter, including suicide, accidental death involving a child, alcoholism, murder, pregnancy-related violence, disturbing corpses, grief, guilt, trauma, and supernatural horror imagery. I’ll still be me about it, but yeah, this movie gets bleak, so reader discretion is advised.

Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

Okay, ride off the bat, I thought I should tell you this movie… oh boy.

This might be the first horror movie and the first Damian McCarthy movie that made me screech like a girl. I screeched once in this movie, and I can’t say I’ve ever screeched before from a horror movie. There’s a jump scare near the end. Me and my sister just went:

AHHHHHHH!

No, really, out loud. I don’t know why it got me. When I describe it, you’ll probably think, “Really? That got that reaction out of you?” Okay, fair, but in the moment it got me.

This movie is depressing. Adam Scott plays Ohm Bauman, a depressed writer and book author, and the book he’s working on is going to have a bleak ending. Basically this medieval knight character and his son are walking through the desert with no hope, and there’s this glass bottle he has with a map in it that’s supposed to lead to some kind of treasure. They find this oasis, this kind of circle built in the desert, and the guy wants to break the bottle open. He tries to pull the lid out, but it’s stuck in there. So he decides to force the son to come over and says, turn around and don’t look back. He’s going to smash the bottle against the son’s head and use the son’s skull to open the bottle.

Yeah, that’s how the movie opens.

But we cut away before we see what happens, because don’t worry, all will be answered to how he ends the story at the end of the movie.

Ohm is dealing with his mother’s death, his father’s death, and a whole lot of trauma. He has their ashes in two containers and wants to take their remains out to this hotel they both used to go to. I think it was either a romantic hotel or the hotel where they met each other, but the implication is that this place means something to them. He wants to scatter their ashes there, which is very nice.

But this is a Damian McCarthy movie, so of course it cannot just be nice.

There’s a creepy hotel, a locked honeymoon suite, witch rumors, a missing woman, a creepy bunny thing, a corpse, Irish folklore vibes, a supernatural basement, and a whole lot of “what the hell is going on?” energy.

And yeah, Damian McCarthy clearly loves Irish folklore. He made Caveat, then Oddity, and now Hokum. He keeps going for this kind of Irish folk horror atmosphere, not like “here’s a leprechaun, enjoy,” but more like isolated places, old buildings, weird rooms, things people half-believe, cursed objects, witchcraft, chalk circles, ghosts, and places that feel like something else is sitting in the background waiting to ruin your night.

Also, what is it with Damian McCarthy’s obsession with bunnies? I mean that creepy bunny toy in Caveat, then that creepy bunny toy made a cameo in Oddity, and now this creepy bunny mascot thingy in Hokum. Why is there a cursed bunny in every movie this man makes? Who hurt you, Damian? Was it a rabbit? Did Bugs Bunny ruin your childhood?

But jokes aside, the bunny imagery does actually fit. Every time one of these creepy rabbit things shows up, it’s tied to childhood, innocence, and something going horribly wrong. And in Hokum, that bunny thing is tied to one of the most important trauma moments in Ohm’s life.

So yeah, it’s goofy, but it works.

Character Rundown

Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is the main character, and right away, you can tell this guy is broken. He’s depressed, he drinks, he’s rude to everyone, and he’s writing a book that sounds like it wants to crawl into a hole and die. He is not a nice guy when we first meet him. He snaps at people, he barely gives anyone attention, and he clearly does not want to be around anyone. But as the movie goes on, you start understanding why he is like this.

Fiona (Florence Ordesh) is the bartender at the hotel, and I actually liked Fiona. She is one of the only characters who pushes back against Ohm. When he gives her attitude, she doesn’t just take it. She says, basically, what was that attitude? You can stay lost. And that throws him off. He actually apologizes. My reaction was, I don’t think you ever apologized a day in your life. Fiona is important because she helps him get out of his slump in a way. She doesn’t treat him like some untouchable author. She talks to him like a person, pushes back, and that matters.

Mal (Peter Coonan) is the desk manager, and yes, Mal is the one who kills Fiona. He is not some genius villain. He is just pathetic. He panics, lies, makes dumb choices, and keeps making everything worse. He’s one of those villains where you’re not scared because he’s smart. You’re scared because he already crossed the line once and now has no idea how to stop digging.

Jerry (David Wilmot) is the homeless guy in the woods, and I actually ended up liking Jerry. At first, he seems like this weird mushroom milk guy living in a van, talking about ghosts and drinking goat milk mixed with mushrooms. But later, he becomes one of the only people actually trying to help. He trusts his gut, comes back when something feels off, and honestly, poor Jerry.

Cob (Brendan Conroy) is the landlord/hotel owner guy, and he is shady as hell at first. This man shoots a goat in the face with a crossbow because it was standing on his car. What kind of landlord does that? But later, he ends up saving Ohm from the burning building, so the movie does play with your expectations a little.

Alby (Will O’Connell) is the bellboy, and Ohm treats him terribly. This poor guy just wants to talk to an author he likes, and Ohm burns him with a hot spoon from a jack-o’-lantern and tells him he needs thicker skin to be a writer. Yeah, Ohm is a dick. But Alby comes back at the end, now working for an ice cream restaurant, and that scene actually shows Ohm has changed.

The Conquistador (Austin Amelio), who is also Dwight from The Walking Dead, plays the character inside Ohm’s book. Yeah, I was not expecting Dwight from The Walking Dead to show up in this movie, but there he is.

Jack the Donkey

And now we need to talk about whatever the hell this thing is.

Apparently his name is Jack the Donkey. Yeah. A donkey. Sure movie. If you say so. Because the first time I saw this thing I thought it was some horrifying bunny mascot creature from the deepest pits of Damian McCarthy’s nightmares. But no, apparently it is meant to be a donkey children’s mascot.

This thing is nightmare fuel.

Jack the Donkey appears throughout the movie as this old-fashioned children’s TV mascot that Ohm remembers from his childhood, and right away there is something deeply wrong about him. He has these giant bulging cartoon eyes that look like they’re permanently staring directly into your soul, pale ghostly skin, sharp teeth, long black hair, and these massive animal ears sticking up from his head. His face looks frozen between a smile and a threat. Sometimes he just stares silently at the camera with this dead-eyed expression, and other times he slowly smiles in a way that feels deeply unnatural. The makeup and design almost feel like an old stage-play mascot mixed with a nightmare version of a children’s television host.

He looks like something that should be introducing kids to counting numbers and friendship while secretly harvesting souls backstage.

This thing genuinely unsettled me more than some of the actual supernatural entities in the movie.

And the creepy part is the movie never fully explains what exactly he is supposed to be.

Is he just a TV mascot from Ohm’s childhood?

Is he a hallucination tied to Ohm’s trauma and guilt?

Is he some supernatural manifestation?

Or is this movie once again blurring the line between imagination, folklore, ghosts, memory, and psychological horror the same way Damian McCarthy did in Caveat and Oddity?

Who knows.

You may find out.

Or you may not.

That’s kind of Damian McCarthy’s whole thing.

What makes Jack the Donkey work is not really jump scares. It is the uncanny valley feeling. He looks like something that should be friendly and comforting to children, but instead feels deeply unnatural. Like one of those old mascots you would see on television as a kid and later remember as an adult and go:

“Wait… why did nobody think this thing was terrifying?”

And honestly, Damian McCarthy clearly has an obsession with creepy childhood imagery. Between the bunny in Caveat, the bunny cameo in Oddity, and now Jack the Donkey in Hokum, this man clearly enjoys taking things associated with innocence and turning them into nightmare fuel.

And somehow?

It works. Ok fine I’ll share the image.

Oyyy donkey! Ogres have layers!

Pacing / Episode Flow

This movie is kind of messy, but it is a fascinating mess.

For the first act, it’s a depressing grief story with creepy hotel vibes. Then it becomes a missing person mystery. Then it becomes a locked-room survival thriller. Then it becomes full supernatural folk horror with witches, chains, demons, and a basement that looks like some old medieval escape tunnel.

For most of the second act, it becomes Adam Scott’s character trying to escape because he’s trapped. That is where the movie can either work or drag, because once you’re stuck with a guy trying to get out of one room, the movie has to keep escalating. Luckily, it does get creepy as hell once he starts exploring the basement.

But I will say the Fiona reveal happens a little early. The movie reveals Mal did it before the ending, so it’s not really a “who killed her?” mystery for the rest of the movie. It becomes more about whether Ohm can escape and whether Mal faces justice.

And trust me, by that point, I was sitting there like, Mal better face justice, because he just rode away and left Adam Scott’s character to die.

Pros

The atmosphere is really strong. Damian McCarthy knows how to make a location feel wrong. The hotel feels creepy, the honeymoon suite feels cursed, and the basement section feels like something out of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, minus the Amnesia.

The witch stuff is creepy when it’s in the shadows. The spider-walk up the shaft made my blood turn to ice. The pale face in the dark, the wailing noise, the long hand coming through the door, all of that worked. Once I saw the witch fully, it didn’t creep me out as much, but the shadowy moments? Nope.

The emotional core actually works too. Ohm accidentally killing his mother as a kid, carrying that guilt his whole life, blaming himself, hating his dad, drinking himself to death emotionally, and then finally hearing his mother forgive him? That’s strong.

Fiona was likable, and that made her death hit harder. She was the one person who pushed back on Ohm and helped him open up.

The ending with Ohm rewriting his book on a happier note was actually a nice payoff. The movie starts with a father ready to smash a bottle against his son’s skull for treasure, and it ends with that father realizing he doesn’t need to hurt his son. There was a goat skull right there the whole time. They didn’t need to hurt each other. That’s actually really nice.

Also, Mal getting dragged into the demon door? Good. He had it coming.

Cons

The movie is definitely uneven. It keeps switching genres. Sometimes it’s grief horror, sometimes it’s a murder mystery, sometimes it’s a survival thriller, and then it becomes supernatural judgment horror.

The Fiona reveal comes early. I was surprised it was Mal, but once the movie tells you, the mystery part is basically done.

Mal is kind of an idiotic villain. He’s not a genius. He just keeps doing dumb things. He comes back to the hotel for some reason. He tries to burn the place down by covering an air heater with a blanket. He folds the second Jerry puts an axe in his face. He’s pathetic more than scary.

Some supernatural stuff is confusing. Fiona’s corpse disappearing and then coming back? I don’t know. I couldn’t begin to answer that because I don’t even understand it.

Also, the bunny mascot thing is goofy. Creepy, yes, but also goofy. That thing does not look like a children’s TV show character. That thing looks horrifying.

Wish they gave us more of jack the donkey, but he’s barely used in the movie.

Final Thoughts

Hokum is depressing, creepy, messy, weird, and somehow kind of wholesome by the end.

It starts with Ohm as a miserable, rude, drunk author who thinks every story needs to end bleak. Then the movie drags him through guilt, murder, witchcraft, demons, fire, and trauma until he finally learns that maybe a story doesn’t have to end with someone’s skull getting smashed open for treasure.

That’s growth.

It’s not perfect. The pacing gets uneven, Mal is a pathetic villain, and the movie sometimes feels like it’s jumping between different horror styles. But the atmosphere, the Irish folklore vibes, the creepy bunny obsession, the emotional payoff, and the final act helped it work for me.

One thing I’ve noticed with Damian McCarthy movies is that there’s usually only one moment in each film that genuinely unnerves me to my core, while the rest of the horror is more atmosphere, tension, weird imagery, and slow-burn creepy vibes.

Like with Caveat, the one moment that actually got under my skin was that horrifying shot of the dead mother hidden inside the wall. That image was deeply wrong. Not because it was running at the camera screaming or covered in gore, but because your brain takes a second to process what you’re even looking at. It’s quiet, unnatural, still, and feels like something you were never supposed to see.

Then in Oddity, the one moment that genuinely creeped me out was that shot of the masked burglar slowly leaning his head inward toward the tent that woman was hiding in. Again, it wasn’t loud horror. It wasn’t some giant monster attack. It was just the way the figure slowly leaned in there in silence. Something about the body language and the stillness of it felt deeply invasive and wrong.

And now in Hokum, that moment for me is Jack the Donkey.

I don’t know what it is about this thing, but just looking at him makes my brain go:

“Uhhhh… I’m going to my safe spot now.”

And the interesting thing is all three of these moments have the same exact thing in common. Damian McCarthy’s horror works best, at least for me, when he focuses on one deeply unnerving image instead of constant jump scares or nonstop monster attacks. His movies usually aren’t terrifying scene-to-scene. Most of the time they’re more atmosphere-driven, folklore-driven, slow-burn horror movies.

But then suddenly he’ll hit you with one image that burns itself into your memory.

The dead mother in the wall.

The masked burglar leaning into the tent.

Jack the Donkey staring into your soul.

And what makes those moments work is that they all feel passive. Nothing is really attacking. Nothing is screaming. The horror comes entirely from the image itself existing. They all feel like things that should not exist in reality. It’s uncanny, unnatural, and deeply uncomfortable.

And honestly, Jack the Donkey might be the most unnerving design Damian McCarthy has created so far. Not because he’s violent or covered in blood, but because he looks like something that should be comforting to children while instead looking deeply wrong. The giant eyes, the frozen smile, the pale face, the way he just silently stares at you like he knows something you don’t. It taps into that same uncanny childhood fear that made old mascots, puppets, and children’s TV characters creepy in the first place.

It feels like the kind of thing you would see once as a kid, forget about for fifteen years, and then randomly remember at 2 AM while trying to sleep and suddenly realize:

“Wait… that thing was horrifying.”

So take that as you will, after that could mean, his movies are just not meant for me. Or the

And yes, that one jumpscare got me and my sister. I still don’t know why, but it did.

Rating

8/10

Spoiler Warning

From this point on, I’m going into full spoilers. If you haven’t seen Hokum, stop reading now, because I’m going to talk about Fiona, Mal, Ohm’s mother, the basement, the witch, the demons, and the ending.

Spoilers

The movie opens with Ohm writing his book during a rainstorm. He’s alone in the house at midnight, drinking and typing on his computer. He looks up and sees this silhouette of a woman standing on the staircase. He is the only one in the house. He aims his desktop light at the stairs, and there’s no figure there. Then he puts the table light down, and we see the creepy woman right behind him.

Yeah, that’s the first jump scare.

Why there’s a jump scare at the start, don’t ask me, but it does not surprise me. It does not fully fit the tone of this movie, because this movie is depressing more than jump-scare horror. But it was a little creepy seeing that silhouette type of woman just standing at the stairs, staring at him.

Anyway, Ohm’s mother died, and his father died. He has their ashes in two containers and wants to scatter them at this hotel they used to go to. On the way there, he sees Jerry, the random old guy in the woods. Then he gets to the hotel, rings the bell, and sees this old man sitting in a wheelchair talking to two small kids. He has this model of a forest and wooden displays of children, and he’s telling a story about a witch. Kids go into the woods, go missing, get seduced by the woods, and get dragged to hell by her chains. Don’t talk to strangers, kids.

Ohm asks the kids, “Is that your dad?” and the kids shake their heads no. So he says, go run off and look for your parents and don’t talk to strangers ever again.

That got a legit laugh.

Then we find out that old guy in the wheelchair is Cob, the owner of the hotel.

Before Ohm enters the hotel, he meets Cob outside with a crossbow. Cob shoots this poor goat that was standing on his car. He says the goat was being stubborn and wouldn’t get off his car, so he shot him. Ohm is like, well, you didn’t shoot it with water or a hose? And Cob basically says no.

What kind of landlord does that? That is shady as hell.

Then Mal, the desk manager, comes out. Ohm wants a room, and he wants the farthest room away from everyone because Halloween night is coming up and there’s going to be a costume party with drinking and partying. Mal gives him the key to the furthest room possible.

While Mal is signing him in, he recognizes Ohm as an author. Mal says he’s a fan of his book, and so is his son. Ohm barely gives him any attention. Mal says, if you need anything, let us know to make your stay here more welcoming. Ohm says, “Will do.” Then Mal says he could bring his son in with his book so Ohm can sign it.

Ohm says nope.

Yeah, he’s one of those dicks.

Ohm gets lost near the closed-off elevator, and Fiona walks up to him and asks, “Are you lost?” Ohm responds with attitude, saying, what do you think, my room should be here, but I can’t locate it.

Ouch.

Luckily Fiona is not a pushover. She says, what was that attitude? You can stay lost. Then she turns around and is about to leave. This throws him back a little bit, and he actually apologizes. He says, “I’m sorry, I just needed to find my room.”

My reaction was, I don’t think you ever apologized a day in your life.

That scene felt legit. Not really wholesome, but it instantly showed me that Fiona got on a nerve for him. It’s almost like he instantly latches onto someone who is willing to push back and not be a pushover. That’s important for the storytelling.

Fiona shows him to his room.

Later, Ohm asks about where the redwood tree is located. We cut to him at the redwood tree in the forest. He pours his mother’s remains out in front of the tree very nicely, and then takes his dad’s remains and just aggressively tosses them without any care. So clearly he hated his dad. But there’s more to it.

In the forest, he meets Jerry. Jerry is drinking milk and offers him a drink. Ohm says he’s going to need something stronger than milk, and Jerry hands him a bottle of alcohol. Ohm takes a drink, and Jerry tells him the milk is actually a mix of mushrooms and goat milk. He made it himself and loves it, so clearly the guy is high as hell.

Jerry says he’s going to bury the goat because he likes nature and cares about it. Ohm hands him back the bottle and says thanks for the drink.

Keep Jerry in mind for later.

Then we cut to Ohm downstairs at the bar, drinking alcohol while Fiona serves him drinks. They talk about his book and how it’s going to end. He tells her it’s going to be bleak, and she says she’s not going to buy that book. Ohm says Hollywood loves to take his books and make happy endings, so maybe they’ll adapt the book and make a happy ending. Fiona says she hopes they do. He says, great, for your sake, I hope they do as well.

They have a conversation, and it’s kind of sad. He tells her she reminds him of his mother. Fiona asks, how old do you think I am? Ohm says, no, when she was younger, and he shows her a picture of his mother. Fiona says she looks very happy and asks what happened to her.

Ohm reluctantly says she died with a bullet to the face when she entered the house.

Fiona asks if the killer was ever caught. Ohm says he was too young to face any consequences, but they should have hung him. She asks, what about your dad? He says his dad drank himself to death.

That line becomes important later.

Ohm asks about the locked elevator. Fiona says it’s for the closed honeymoon suite. The owner has the keys and would refuse to give them to her. She explains that there’s a rumor about a witch. Yeah, there’s a witch. They locked her up in the honeymoon suite and closed off that area forever.

Fiona shows him a book of witchcraft. She’s a fan of witchcraft and studies it. She tells him if you meet a witch, you have to use chalk to protect yourself. Ohm says if he sees a witch, he’s going to see a psychiatrist instead of using chalk.

Then Alby the bellboy comes up. Fiona tells him to tell Ohm about the encounter with the witch he had. Basically, Alby was standing in front of the elevator, and the elevator opened. Wind came out and blew his bellboy hat off. He picked it up, heard this strange noise from the elevator, like a woman crying but not exactly. He takes a lighter, sticks his hand into the dark elevator, and then this creepy pale face lady slowly appears out of the dark. He runs off.

Of course, Ohm does not believe him. Fiona believes him.

Then Fiona leaves for a moment, and Alby tries to talk to Ohm. He says he knows who he is and he’s a huge fan. Ohm says that’s very worrying, since his characters are completely awful people.

And of course, Alby can’t read the room. Ohm clearly does not want to talk to him. Alby notices the tape recorder near Ohm and asks if that’s what he uses to write down thoughts for his writing. Ohm says yes, and right now, he actually had a thought. He pulls up the tape recorder, turns it on, and says he just came up with a character who is completely oblivious and doesn’t know how to read the room.

Alby still keeps going.

He says he’s also a book writer. Ohm says, oh, so is that bellboy outfit a costume? Alby says no, he works here. Then Ohm takes a hot spoon out of a lit jack-o’-lantern and taps it on Alby’s hand.

Yep, Ohm is a dick.

Alby goes out, and Ohm says, see, you need to have rougher skin to be a writer. Now get out of here.

That’s probably the most dickish thing he does.

Later, Fiona comes back and says cheers to bleak endings. Then the bar is empty, and Fiona is closing it down. She sees Ohm’s tape recorder on the table and the picture of his mother just sitting there. That is concerning already. She takes them up to his room. She knocks on the door and tries to get him to open it, but he won’t respond. Alby shows up, and she asks him for the key to open the door. He says, why would I help him? He burned me with a hot spoon. Fiona says, just open the door. Alby says, fine, it’s your funeral.

They open the door. The lights are off. Fiona tries to say his name. She turns on the light.

And then she sees Ohm hanging from the ceiling.

He tried to hang himself.

That completely surprised me. I was not expecting Adam Scott’s character to try to hang himself. But if you piece together some dialogue, especially when he said the killer was too young to face sentencing and should have been hung, and then he hangs himself, yeah. The movie was telling us something.

Later, he wakes up in the hospital. He decides to go back to the hotel to retrieve his items. When he gets there, he sees the hotel is closing for the season. There’s a sign that says closed for the season. He rings the desk bell, and Mal comes out with two guys walking away. Mal asks what he’s doing there. Ohm says he just came to grab his stuff.

Mal takes him to his office and hands him his items. Ohm asks about Fiona, the girl who got him to the hospital. Mal tells him Fiona found him in his room, hanged, and got him down. Ohm asks how she is feeling, probably not well after seeing that. He says he’d like to talk to her and maybe apologize for what she saw.

Then Mal drops the bombshell.

Fiona has been missing. It’s been three weeks. That party was three weeks ago.

Oh.

Mal hands him a newspaper showing Fiona disappeared. Ohm asks if they searched everywhere and wonders if maybe she got taken away. Mal says taken away by who? Ohm says, I don’t know, by a wacko? There are wackos here if you don’t know that.

Mal closes the door and says those two guys who walked out were cops. They did have a suspect. Jerry, the homeless guy. They say Jerry killed his wife and now he’s the number one suspect, and now he’s missing too. Mal tells Ohm he’ll call him if anything comes of Fiona.

As Ohm leaves, he sees Cob shutting everything down and barricading the windows. Cob believes Jerry killed Fiona. He says when Jerry comes back, he’ll get him. Ohm asks if the cops ever questioned Cob, because the guy is kind of shady. I mean, he shoots goats in the face with a crossbow. Cob says the best thing Ohm can do is leave right now, get the fuck out of here, go back to the airport, and leave the country while his face still looks exactly like his passport image.

Okay, I hope to never mind you again.

Ohm leaves and goes to the forest. He finds Jerry’s van. He opens it and finds Fiona’s witchcraft book inside. Jerry pops out of nowhere. Ohm tells Jerry the cops are looking for him. Jerry says they won’t listen to a word he says, and they won’t believe him.

Jerry explains that Fiona was his friend and she loaned him the book. Jerry thinks Fiona is dead because when he was inside the hotel trying to steal drugs from the cabinet in Mal’s room, he saw the bell for the honeymoon suite ringing. Then he looked down and saw what looked like the ghost of Fiona pointing up at the bell. So he is certain she is dead and might be up there.

Jerry wants to sneak into the hotel at midnight and see if she’s up there. He stole the keys to the suite. Ohm decides to stay with Jerry in the forest until night.

Jerry talks about his dead wife. He says when he takes mushrooms, he sees her ghost, and she visits him and tells him she thanks him for killing her because she was sick and he put her out of her misery. She says she’ll meet him in the afterlife when he dies. Ohm is like, whatever you say, whatever you believe.

Night comes, and they go inside the hotel. Jerry tries to go to the back to grab the crossbow, but Cob is there waiting. Cob knocks Jerry out and handcuffs him with some kind of binds. He hears someone outside and checks, but Ohm is hiding. Cob then takes Jerry’s unconscious body to the van outside and drives away.

Jerry later wakes up in the van after being hauled away by Cob. He takes a knife, cuts the binds off him, and jumps out of the moving van. So yeah.

Meanwhile, Ohm goes up to the elevator, unlocks the locks, takes the elevator up, and reaches the honeymoon suite. He looks around. He sees nothing. He checks the bed. He checks the bathroom. The tub looks like it’s filled with dirty water. Then he decides to take a nap in the bed.

When he sleeps, he has the flashback of him killing his mother when he was a kid.

We see him as a kid watching TV with this creepy bunny dude on it. That creepy bunny? Yeah, that creepy bunny? I thought that was the witch, but it’s not the witch. It’s just some creepy bunny dude on a children’s TV show. Apparently in this world, that thing is a children’s TV mascot. Does that look like a children’s show character? No, not really. That thing looks horrifying.

Anyway, he’s watching TV. He has his dad’s gun in this box. For some reason, he takes the gun out and starts playing with it. Yeah, alright, stupid thing. Then he accidentally shoots it, because he’s a kid and does not know how to use a gun. It accidentally shoots his mother, who just entered the house.

So yes, Ohm was the killer. But he did not do it on purpose. It was an accident. He was too young to face consequences, and it was completely an accident.

And now you understand why his dad drank himself to death. He had to live with the killer in his house. I mean, that’s really dark. It shows the dad put up with a lot more than he let on. Ohm despises his dad because he may have been abusive and drank himself to death, but when you realize the dad had to live with that? He lost his wife, and the child who caused it is still there. That is dark.

No wonder Ohm is completely broken.

Ohm wakes up, and the creepy bunny dude is staring at him. That was a jump scare. Then Mal is there, asking what he’s doing up here. Ohm says he wanted to find Fiona and felt like he owed it to her. Mal tells him they should get downstairs and away from there, because his boss will fire him if he knows someone was up there. He’s very strict about this room.

Also if anyone wants to see what Jack The Donkey looks like? Watch this video, it talks about his character (character I say loosely)

Yes you’re welcome for the nightmares.

On the way out, Ohm sees a chute door in the wall. He opens it up, and Mal gets really fussy. He says, whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t open that. Ohm looks down and asks what’s down there. Mal says it used to be a disposal to the basement, but it’s inactive and there’s nothing down there. He promises there’s nothing down there and tries to close it.

Ohm presses the button to summon the shaft. Mal freaks out, goes to the door, and says his boss is going to fire him.

The chute comes up.

And Fiona’s body is inside.

Yep. She was murdered, and her body was stuffed inside the dump shaft. So it was Mal all along. Mal killed Fiona. Then Mal locks the door, locking Ohm in, goes down the elevator, locks the elevator, and leaves the hotel, leaving Ohm behind.

I was depressed about Fiona’s death because I actually liked Fiona. Ohm really liked Fiona too. She was the only one who helped him get out of his slump. She pushed back. She helped him. And he tried to locate her, but it turns out it was in vain because she was dead.

Later we get a flashback to that Halloween night. Fiona is dressed in the bunny outfit she found. Again, for some reason the director is obsessed with bunny imagery. Mal and Fiona are talking, and Fiona is about to go visit Ohm in the hospital. Mal tells her to drink her tea while it’s warm because he made her tea. She drinks it and starts feeling woozy and faint. He takes her body, puts her in a wheelchair, takes her upstairs to the honeymoon suite, and dumps her in the chute.

Then in the present, Ohm finds his tape recorder. He plays it, and Fiona’s voice is on it. She says she does not know if she will live or not, so in case she doesn’t, she’s going to describe everything. She says she is pregnant, and Mal is the father. Mal was scared his family would find out. He didn’t want the kid, and he was mad she kept the baby a secret. She didn’t think he would go this far and try to kill her. Now she’s stuck in the basement and is going to try to find a way out. If she doesn’t, she hopes someone finds the message.

So yep. Mal did it.

For most of the second act, Ohm is stuck in the suite trying to escape. Before he goes into the basement, he finds a cupboard door that leads outside. He tries to open it, but it’s locked from outside. He takes a little knife and starts twirling around with the screws, but some of the screws don’t match, so the knife won’t fit.

While that happens, the lights go off behind him. The corpse disappears. He gets out of the cabinet, takes the lantern, looks around, and sees something come out of the shadows. He panics.

And yeah, what does it mean that the corpse disappeared? I don’t know. Fiona’s corpse is missing, and later the corpse comes back. How the corpse vanished and how the corpse came back, who the hell knows? I don’t know. I couldn’t begin to answer that because I don’t even understand it.

Eventually, Ohm takes Fiona’s body out of the shaft and puts her body in a chair.

How sweet of him.

Also, she’s creepy staring at him. I don’t know why he doesn’t close her eyes.

He sets up this mechanism where he takes an alarm clock with this angel statue on it and a stick hitting a bell at every specific hour. He winds the clock and lines it up with his watch so he can time it and make it pull him back up when he needs to. He gets into the shaft, the angel statue presses the button, and he descends down into the basement.

And he instantly regrets it. Kinda instantly.

He gets out and starts walking. The so-called basement looks like this old medieval-fashioned underground, the kind of underground that would be used to escape through. There are corridors, and at the end of the dark hall is a door. He sees artifacts hanging on the ceiling after he turns on the lights, some of which are flickering. Luckily he has his trusty lantern with him as if this is Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Okay, kinda it is, minus the Amnesia.

As soon as he starts exploring, he hears a wailing noise in the distance.

He runs back to the shaft, and luckily the timer is about to go off. He counts the seconds as the noise makes its way to him.

But the little angel statue on the alarm clock is now toying with him. The timer goes off, but it’s not moving. We see this creepy smile on the statue, like it’s thinking, yeah, I’m not saving you. The statue is giving side eye like, ooh, something just happened.

So now he’s trapped down there, panicking. The lights start going off, and this creepy pale face starts walking up to him slowly. Then all of a sudden, the shaft goes up and he gets saved. He gets back up, and then right away, just because bad luck and the universe is against him, the alarm goes off again, and the angel statue activates the button one more time. The shaft starts descending, so he jumps and rolls out quickly.

Okay, so clearly that statue is against him.

Shady bell statue thingy.

He looks down and sees the lights starting to turn off in the distance at the bottom. Then he sees one of the creepiest moments in the movie: the witch lady doing a spider-walk up the side of the wall, up the shaft, heading toward him.

Did that make my blood turn to ice and scream nooooope?

Yes.

He closes the lid and backs away. The witch has this creepy long hand come through the side of the door and unlock the door. Ohm jumps, runs to the bathroom, and jumps through this open window/view thing in the bathroom wall. It’s like an open view of the bathroom with two cabinet doors you can open, so people can apparently see you in the restaurant. I don’t know why you would want that. Anyway, he jumps through there into the disgusting water. Then he exits the bathroom, locks the bathroom door, gets into the bedroom, and locks the bedroom door.

We see off to the side, the witch goes to the restroom door and reaches her hands through the crack, trying to unlock the door. Ohm gets onto the bed, and he notices he has a piece of chalk with him.

He remembers what Fiona told him.

He draws a circle around the bed and gets into the bed. The witch comes to his bed and just circles around it, looking like she can’t enter because the circle wards off witches. She just stares at him with this creepy smile. Then the sun comes up, and he wakes up. I guess he fell asleep. I don’t know how he fell asleep to that.

That moment was creepy, but once I saw the witch fully, it did not creep me out as much. It was the creepy view of her face in the shadows and the spider-crawling up the walls that made me feel nope.

The next morning, Mal comes back. Want to know how dumb Mal is? He decides to come back. He just goes into the building again.

Why? Who the fuck knows.

Ohm figures out where the wire to the bell downstairs is. He finds this button in the room, presses it, and it rings the bell. He’s hoping to get someone’s attention because he sees a car outside.

Jerry is in the building too. He’s badly injured from jumping out of a moving van. Mal finds Jerry trying to bang his way into the closed elevator. Jerry asks Mal for help.

Mal lies. He says Ohm is gone. He says Ohm was badly drunk, so he took him to the airport and put him in a taxi. He says there was no one up there. Trust me, I looked everywhere.

Uh huh.

Liar.

Mal convinces Jerry to leave. He says, I promise not to tell anyone you’re here. Just go home. Rest. Don’t worry. Ohm is fine. All that stuff, blah, blah, blah.

Jerry walks out to the car, gets in, and then gets back out because he forgot his keys. Mal tries to push the door shut on him, but Jerry says he forgot the keys and asks if Mal is okay. Mal says he might want to go home too. He grabs the keys for Jerry.

The reason Mal doesn’t want Jerry back in is because the honeymoon suite bell is ringing, and he doesn’t want Jerry to see that.

Jerry gets to his car and drives off. Ohm is not happy. Mal calms down, goes to his office, comes back out…

And there’s Jerry.

Jerry says he has a gut feeling something is off and is trusting his instinct. Right then, Ohm tries to pull the string, but the button breaks off. So he makes the hole bigger, puts his hand into the hole, finds the rest of the string, and starts pulling it. Jerry sees the honeymoon suite bell ringing.

Jerry becomes a certified badass. He says, give me the keys. Mal says he can’t. He’s not allowed to. Jerry picks up a hand axe that is just sitting on the table for some reason, aims it at Mal, and says, give me the keys.

So Mal gives him the keys.

Again, Mal is kind of an idiotic villain. He is not a genius or anything. He just caves when an axe is in his face. He says okay, okay, and gives him the key.

Jerry limps up the stairs, and Mal follows behind screaming:

“You don’t understand! Fiona was a bad person! You didn’t know her like I did!”

Dude, you’re a dick and kind of pathetic.

And this is where things officially get unhinged and things go left. I literally mean left.

Mal’s next “genius” plan, and I say genius with quotations, is to go to the air heater under one of the cabinets, put a blanket over it even though it says do not cover air heater, and turn the air heater all the way up to high, hoping to burn down the place.

Yeah, like I said, “genius” plan.

Jerry gets up there, goes to the door, and Ohm bangs on the door saying, Jerry, I’m in here. Jerry can’t open the door, but he sees the locked cabinet and says he can open it. He takes the axe and cuts the lock off the cabinet, opens it, and Ohm is happy to see him.

Then, all of a sudden, poor Jerry.

Mal comes up from around the corner by the elevator with a crossbow and shoots Jerry in the face, killing him.

Fuck.

Poor Jerry.

Ohm backs away, and Mal says, don’t you dare try to leave. Then Mal leaves through the elevator, but guess what? This is where I officially giggled in happiness. He tries to lift up the locked gate blocking the elevator, and it’s locked. When he realizes it’s locked and he can’t open it, I literally went:

Hehe heh yayayyy.

So Mal goes back upstairs to grab the keys off Jerry’s dead body. But Ohm is ten steps ahead. He sneaks out and grabs the key from Jerry. He sees the elevator coming up and goes back into the room. Mal searches Jerry’s body and doesn’t find the keys. He opens the door and demands the key back.

Ohm decides to go inside the dumpster shaft. The little angel alarm presses the button, and he descends down. When he gets to the basement, he hears Mal over the communication call, saying if he comes back up and gives him the keys, they can both leave. Mal says he can forgive him, they can both move on, come on man, give me the keys, we can leave now.

Uh huh, sure.

Ohm does not believe him. He decides to get out and start exploring. He hears the witch coming. He tries to draw the chalk circle around himself.

And this is the jump scare that made me and my sister scream out loud.

He draws the circle, and just as he stands up, we see this creepy pale face behind him. The figure smiles, and the figure looks a lot like Alby, the bellboy that Ohm burned with a hot spoon.

I don’t know why it looked like him, but for some reason that scare made me and my sister scream out loud.

AHHHHHHH!

Keep in mind, I usually do not scream at all when it comes to horror movies, but that one got me for some reason. I don’t know why. I could not explain why.

Then the lights shut off.

Mal comes down trying to find Ohm. He sees the key hanging off a chain from a rope in the ceiling. He tries to pull it down with a stick. Then this figure comes up behind him, puts shackles on him and a chain, and starts yanking him away.

Then we see Ohm on the floor in the corner in shackles, tearing up, and he sees a vision or ghost, I don’t know, of his dead mom. He apologizes and says:

“It was an accident. It was an accident. I’m sorry.”

His mother forgives him and says he cannot die down there. It’s not his time.

Just then, the witch wearing medieval armor like the character in his book passes by him, pulling a shackled Mal.

Gotta be real, I found the reveal of the witch to be very underwhelming.I don’t know, just like a random old lady In medieval armor which made no sense to me whatsoever.

Mal and Ohm are both on the floor. Mal asks what’s going on. The witch goes over to the door and opens it. Behind the door are these demonic spirits, blackened shadows with glowing white eyes, making a come-here hand movement. Mal’s chains get yanked, and he is pulled toward the door.

Mal screams for help while Ohm just sits there. Ohm takes out a little chain cutter that Fiona used to cut down the rope and save him after she found him hung. He found it on her corpse, and he uses it to cut his chain while he watches Mal get dragged into the door and consumed by the demons.

The door closes.

That’s the end of Mal.

Good. He had it coming.

Ohm cuts himself loose and runs back to the chute. He waits for the statue to press the button, and it does. He escapes and makes it out to the elevator. He unlocks the locked door, but the whole place is on fire. He faints from the fumes.

Luckily, Cob comes running in to see if anyone is in the building. He hears a noise in the distance and says, is anyone there? He goes in that direction and finds unconscious Ohm. He picks him up and takes him out of the burning building.

Ohm wakes up in the hospital, and who is there to greet him? Alby, the bellboy, who is now working for an ice cream restaurant. He brings Ohm a bottle of wine all wrapped up. Ohm politely asks him to take a seat. It looks like Ohm has opened up.

Ohm jokingly says, “I guess I’ll have the double scooped ice cream next, please?”

That got a laugh.

Then Alby says he has to go, and Ohm tells him to take the bottle with him. Alby says he doesn’t drink. Ohm says no, I really mean take it. I don’t need it.

So I guess Ohm is no longer an alcoholic. He is sobered up, kind of gone through and fought his demons in a sort of way.

Then we end on a happy note with him going back to finishing his book. We see the character in his book, played by Austin Amelio, the actor who played Dwight in The Walking Dead. The guy is about to smash the bottle against his son’s head, but he has a second thought. He realizes he doesn’t deserve the treasure. So he hands the bottle to his son and says, okay, undo it on my head. I don’t deserve it. You deserve the treasure. Don’t stop if you see blood. Go find the treasure. You deserve it.

That’s wholesome.

He kneels down in front of his son. His son lifts the bottle in the air, but at the last minute, he throws it away. They both hug each other. Then we see the bottle landed right next to this goat skull.

So they didn’t even need to hit each other in the head to open that bottle. They could have used that skull just over the hill.

That’s such a nice ending. Ohm went through progression and learned to end his story on a happy note instead of the dad killing his son because he wants to get rich.

So yeah, Hokum is a weird, depressing, creepy movie. It’s messy, but it has a point. It’s about guilt, forgiveness, consequences, and realizing you don’t have to keep writing the bleakest ending possible.

And again…

Why the hell does Damian McCarthy love creepy bunnies so much?

Here’s the next horror movie im excited for this month, titled Passanger.