Hokum Ending Explained: Does Adam Scott Escape the Haunted Hotel?
Hokum, the latest film from horror up-and-comer Damien McCarthy, stars a charmingly grumpy Adam Scott as an author in need of inspiration to end his popular novel series. As the age-old adage goes, be careful what you wish for.
Around Halloween, Scott’s character, Ohm Bauman, checks into the isolated Irish hotel, Billberry Woods, where his deceased parents once honeymooned, both to lay their ashes to rest in a place he presumed they were happiest, and use it as a quiet writing retreat. Little does he know that the establishment, while full of rustic charm and small-town, quirky staff, is haunted by a chain-wielding witch ripped from local legend – and she’s taken up residence in the now-permanently off-limits honeymoon suite.
McCarthy, whose previous horror films, the smaller-budgeted but well-received Caveat (2020) and Oddity (2024), is an Irish native whose work has so far been physically and folklorically rooted in his homeland. In a decade that has seen the rise of both folk and ‘elevated’ horror, McCarthy errs firmly on the side of the former, and in a year in which liminal horror is making waves (Backrooms and Exit 8), Hokum is a more old-fashioned haunted house tale. This is interestingly tempered by a murder mystery plotline and plenty of dark humour – imagine the Irish black comedy/crime series Bodkin set in the Overlook hotel.
Does Bauman escape one of the creepiest hotels committed to film in recent memory? Read on for a dissection of Hokum’s ending, and be warned that heavy spoilers are ahead, naturally. Please also be advised that this article contains discussion of suicide.
What Happens to Adam Scott’s Ohm Bauman in the Hotel Basement?
Hokum inevitably draws and ensnares Bauman in the haunted honeymoon suite as he searches for missing hotel staff member, Fiona. Upon finding her dead body crammed inside a dumb waiter, and locked in the suite by her killer, another staffer called Mal (acting under the direction of the hotel’s intimidating owner) he descends into the basement hoping to find an exit. Instead, he comes face to face with the witch he’s been warned about.
He makes it back to the suite but is pursued by the witch in one of the most terrifying chase sequences in the movie. Using a chalk circle for protection – a technique he learned from Fiona – he survives until dawn.
Later on, however, Mal returns to finish the job by shooting Bauman’s unlikely ally, the delightful local druggie, Jerry, with a hand crossbow, before setting the hotel on fire to destroy all the evidence of his spiralling crime spree. Bauman once again flees into the basement, and Mal follows him, unprepared for the very real danger that lurks down there.
Does Bauman Survive His Encounter With the Witch?
Bauman once again tries to draw a protective chalk circle around himself, but it is too late. Both he and Mal are manacled by the witch, who begins to march them towards a hellish dimension full of, presumably, her other victims. But redemption spares Bauman at the last moment: the ghost of his mother, who’d been haunting him throughout the film, forgives him for the crime he’d forgotten he’d accidentally committed as a boy – shooting her in the face while playing with a pistol at home.
While Bauman had momentarily resigned himself to his fate as a perceptible punishment, his mother’s forgiveness spurs him to cut himself free of the witch’s chains with a handsaw he’d kept on his person. The murderous Mal is not so lucky.
How Bauman Escapes the Hotel – and Where Hokum Leaves Him
Bauman stumbles out of the frying pan and literally into the fire when he leaves the basement and the suite for the last time. He collapses from smoke inhalation in the burning hotel, but is saved by Fiona’s secret lover, Fergal, the son of the Billberry owner – the affair that sadly condemned her.
He ends up in the same hospital he did previously after attempting to end his own life, only to be saved by Fiona. There, a conversation with the hapless former porter Alby leads to a confession from the latter that, imbittered by Bauman’s poor treatment of him, the porter had spiked his drink on the night of his suicide attempt with some of Jerry’s magic mushrooms, which the woodsman claimed opened his mind enough to see Fiona’s ghost after she’d been killed.
This startling revelation leads Bauman to wonder how much of the film’s events may or may not have happened, with the only clue that his experiences had been real being the remaining bruises from the manacles around his wrists. It’s possible, too, that he may not have been able to commune with his mother without the hallucinogens.
Real or not, Bauman, who began Hokum suicidally depressed and lashing out at everyone around him, finally knows how to end his Conquistador novel series. His original vision involved the titular character smashing a bottle over the head of his young companion to free a note inside that would lead them to finding the thing they’d been desperately searching for. Now, the author’s release of the guilt and anger he may have not known he was holding onto allows him to pen a more hopeful ending: the Conquistador instructs his companion to smash the bottle on his head instead in an act of self-sacrifice. But the boy can’t go through with it.
The bottle is tossed away, and the pair embrace, choosing to live together instead of chasing a self-destructive fantasy. What they don’t see, at least yet, is that it lands next to a half-buried ram’s skull. It seems that fate is rewarding them with a literal bone.
What to Watch Next If You Like Hokum
If you enjoyed Hokum, you should definitely check out McCarthy’s previously mentioned films Caveat and Oddity. Caveat, his directorial debut made for a pittance of a quarter of a million pounds, is similarly set in a house in the middle of nowhere that is haunted by something lurking in a basement. Oddity, McCarthy’s 2024 South by Southwest festival hit, deals with another grieving protagonist who must uncover the truth about a relative’s death, set in another rural home of curios.
Outside of McCarthy’s growing body of impressive work, The Shining is never not a solid recommendation for more haunted hotel shenanigans. A slightly deeper cut in the same niche – and with a story by the same author, Stephen King – is 1408, in which a paranormal sceptic played by John Cusack is trapped in a hotel room that plays on his own fears. It’s an underrated King story that relies on genuine psychological terror and trippiness for its scares.
For more classic crone energy, 2025’s Weapons and its Oscar-winning child-snatcher is also a good comp, not least for the crime mystery at its centre to unravel. Hokum’s nameless witch isn’t as memorable as the glorious Gladys, but if you like your hags to be of the classically horrifying fairy tale variety, I think the two of them would form a great coven.
