Movie: Hokum

This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.

Out Of the Frying Pan
Into the Fire

Plot Overview

At the age of ten Ohm Bauman lost his mother (Mallory Adams) through a tragic accident for which he blamed him­self. His dad drunk him­self to death. Orphan Ohm (Adam Scott) grew up to become a famous writer with a fan base & name recognition. He is currently finishing his The Conquis­tador trilogy but has painted himself into a corner with a “bleak” epilogue. He takes a break to visit in Arden, Ireland the Bill­berry Woods Hotel “where memories are made,” his parents having spent their honey­moon there. He finds nothing but fault. He criticizes the staff for killing the nuisance goats instead of just shooing them away (“Goats are stubborn.”) He repri­mands the owner for frightening the children with a witch story. And he is rude to the aspiring writer cum bell­boy (“to pay the bills”) Alby (Will O'Connell) who needs a “thicker skin” to do any­thing with his manu­script rather than hide its light under a bushel. It's not going to publish itself. A true writer need expect criticism, rejection, negotiation and dead­line. It's much like a steamship's fireman in a W. Townend short story:

Still at the No. 7 furnace that had been burnt down for him, Darkie flung shovels of coal on to the fire: the yellow glare casting a light on his lean face and the muscles of his bare arms. He slammed the furnace door shut, opened the forced-draught checks and drew a bucket of sea water from the tap at the bulk­head. He poured the water on to the mound of red-hot clinkers on the plates. The steam shot up towards the dark gratings over­head with a fierce hissing. (267)

Making a fire would be a bleak end in and of itself unless one can coax some steam from it up to where it will do some good.

Insulting a bellboy is a bad idea … as is giving grief to anybody with access to one's food & drink. Alby retaliates by spiking the guest's drink with some local magic mushroom moon­shine. Ohm is in a room all by himself removed from the Halloween shindig down below. He's frustrated in his writing. He's in a strange place. He's got suicidal ideation. Bad combination, that. Counter girl Fiona Crotty (Florence Ordesh)—dressed up as a bear—uses her pass­key to open his door when he doesn't respond to her knock. After he gets out of hospital he learns that Fiona has gone missing. She's a girl in trouble but it was early enough that she had options. She wasn't going to finger the father but he didn't know that; he was terrified of the professional and social repercussions if word got out, but Fiona didn't think he'd go as far as he did. Local eccentric, forest dweller Jerry (David Wilmot) purloins the key to the honey­moon sutte [sic] in which Ohm will find him­self locked tight as the hotel is closed down for the season. The dumb­waiter, if he can even get it to work, goes only to the sealed basement on which the hotel was built. Only the witch lives there. If he had been looking for inspiration for a happy ending, he's come to the wrong place.

Ideology

(Prov. 30:15-16) “The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not, It is enough.” There are two kinds of definitive dependents (“crying, Give, give”): the very young—out from the womb, and they keep coming—and the very old—heading for the grave, and they keep leaving. As Harry Mulisch writes:

Werker realized that every­where in the city children were constantly being born, to replace those who were dying—an unname­able process hidden behind walls, a fly­wheel with the capacity of the earth orbiting the sun. (69)

When the ancient world­wide flood drained away leaving “the earth that is not filled with water,” the planet was able to establish a productive ecology. As authoress Donna Howell puts it (from Job 38:8, Job 38:26-27):

Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? [Shutting the “doors” to the sea denotes God's majestic ability to limit Earth's waters so the planet will not fall prey to perpetual flooding. “When it brake forth” is considered by many to refer to a time Earth was flooded, and of course, most assume this to be Noah's Flood. To Gap theorists, this entire speech is a reference to an epoch more ancient than Noah; it glances back to the “deep­” of Genesis 1:2.] To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? (113)

(Psalm 65:9-13) “Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly: thou settlest the furrows thereof: thou makest it soft with showers: thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.”

Here corn refers to any kind of dominant grain, not just what we're used to. As Gudmundur Kamban illustrates, “On the second day the Scottish runners brought various sorts of corn. There was wild rye with a large and hard kernel, but over-ripe; some spikes which Tryker was inclined to identify as wild wheat—” (234–5). The conquistador (Austin Amelio) in Bauman's trilogy traverses a desert land­scape, but Ohm drives over undulating fields in Ireland, with forage for the goats who will produce milk and capric meat.

“The fire that saith not, It is enough.” That's human metabolism burning day and night all the time, and it has to be fed. Fiona was costumed as a bear. Bears are notoriously protective of their cubs. Once the cub pops out Fiona might well consider how to feed it, just as Alby had to do some­thing to pay the bills though he thought of a different kind of life for himself. The obvious solution is to hit up the father. He didn't want that to happen, which is why he took measures.

The conquistador having shed his armor too soon was in a fix. The token solution involved him and the boy (Ezra Carlisle) swapping roles of protector and protected. The author made it work.

Production Values

“” was written and directed by Irishman Damian McCarthy. It stars Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, Florence Ordesh, and David Wilmot. The actors handled their parts with aplomb, and Scott did a worthy lead.

MPA rated it R for some violent/disturbing content, and language. The eponymous bilberry fruit grows on the side of the road in those parts. WW2 pilots out of England used it to improve their night vision. The “magic mushrooms” in this picture, on the other hand, were presented as recreational not medicinal. The horror is multi­dimensional, and the tension never lets up. It was filmed on location in West Cork, Ireland. Runtime is 1¾ hours.

Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation

There's a worthy children's spoof of a TV presentation with strong encouragement to kids to never, never play with two things:

1. Fire
2. Guns

Of course the thematic material in general would discourage letting children view this one. It was well written for adults who favor horror.

Movie Ratings

Action factor: Edge of your seat action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Don't watch this movie alone. Overall movie rating: Five stars out of five.

Works Cited

Scripture was cited from the King James Version, Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software

Howell, Donna and Dr. Thomas Horn. Before Genesis. © 2023 Defender Publishing. Crane, MO: Defender Pub., 2023. Print.

Kamban, Gudmundur, I See a Wondrous Land. London: Nicholson and Watson Limited, 1938. Print.

Mulisch, Harry. The Procedure. Originally published in Dutch as De Procedure. Copy­right © Harry Mulisch, 1998. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2001. Print.

Townend, W. “In the Stokehold”. Compiled in, Fifty Great Sea Stories. Copyright. London: Odhams Press, LTD. Print.