{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "description": "Hokum is a bleak film. It's slow, it's atmospheric and it is dark and, in that way, is not at all unlike Damian McCarthy's Oddity . Ohm Bauman is a writer haunted by a tragic childhood. It's in his writing and in the casual cruelty with which he interacts with others. The epilogue he starts the film working on feels like something he's trying to work through — is the conquistador his father and the boy him? Is he traversing the desert trying to prove himself only to have the adventure end in an act of brazen violence? His father's anger at him over what happened to his mother manifested in fiction. Bauman is on a retreat to scatter his parents' ashes in Ireland, staying at the inn where they spent their honeymoon. The goats eat mushrooms and climb on the cars while the owner scares the children. Ohm puts his parents to rest, drinks with a local and spirals into a drug-fueled suicide attempt. He wakes up, alone, in the hospital. He survives, but his rescuer, Fiona, is dead. Ohm searches for answers with the aid of Jerry, his forest-dwelling drinking companion, and they press for access to the suite where his parents spent their honeymoon and which the owner, Cob, insists is haunted. It's here that things turn. Is it in fact haunted? Perhaps — certainly by recent events as Ohm discovers Fiona's body there and a tape recorder containing her final moments. An event so dark will always hang over a space. That her death was spurred by something as mundane as an affair makes it no less haunting. You see events split and fray while Ohm is trapped in the suite. He sees flashes of his childhood, a monstrous bunny he watched on TV, the accident with a gun that killed his mother and destroyed his father. Her memory is there and her ashes are a walk into the woods away. Mal, the front desk clerk, is haunted and desperate. Fiona, the victim of his crime, is in the suite with Ohm, tethering them together. One accident, one murder, two acts of violence. In search of an escape, Ohm tries and fails to attract Jerry's attention. He takes the dumbwaiter to the basement as Fiona had, improvising an admittedly clever escape mechanism and finds no escape. The basement is sealed off and had served as a temporary tomb for Fiona. She's uncovered, Mal's secret is revealed and Ohm descends. He sees flashes of the witch that haunts the place and hastily enshrines himself in a chalk circle. Mal descends. Ohm's mother appears. Mal is dragged into the darkness. Ohm is forgiven and emerges into an inn on fire. He finds himself in the hospital, again. Alby, a victim of Ohm's casual cruelty, visits and offers yet another drink as a gift. The gift is rejected and Alby promises to return with a revised manuscript — Ohm met the initial mention with a hot spoon to Alby's skin and an admonishment to grow thicker skin. Perhaps his small part in this all allowed him to do that. Ohm returns to his epilogue. The conquistador and the boy discard their map, sealed in a glass bottle with nothing solid in the endless desert to shatter it against. They embrace, knowing that, though they're doomed, they still have each other.",
  "path": "/watching/movies/hokum-2026",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-02T16:36:43Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:sttgf52vkk46f6yuknvqxvgh/site.standard.publication/self",
  "tags": [
    "horror",
    "drama"
  ],
  "title": "Hokum"
}