HOKUM

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Alex

A Spanish conquistador and a small child travel through the desert, almost completely running out of water. He finds a red circle in the sand and says that they are close to their destination. He removes takes a bottle he’s carried with him that contains a rolled up scroll – he attempts to smash it but it won’t break against the sand. The child begins helping him dig through these sand, looking for a rock to use to break it. The conquistador says “it can’t end like this” and prepares to break the bottle on the small child, hesitating… and the whole thing turns out to be the pages for an epilogue of a book Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott), a writer, is typing on his laptop, trying to come up with an ending for his very popular book trilogy. As Ohm looks up, he appears to see a woman in the shadows standing on his stairs. He turns his lamp towards it, but sees nothing.

Going through a box of belongings of his deceased parents, he finds a gun as well as a card from The Bilberry Woods Hotel in Ireland, where he decides to visit. Traveling to Ireland, Ohm arrives at the hotel, where he meets the groundskeeper Fergal (Michael Patric). Inside, hotel owner Mr. Cob (Brendan Conroy) tells two small children a scary story about a witch who lived in the woods. He says the witch would prey on the lost, casting spells on travelers, then capturing them and taking them to the underworld. He is interrupted by Ohm, who warns the children not to talk to strangers.

While checking in, the front desk clerk Mal (Peter Coonan) recognizes Ohm’s name and asks if he can bring in one of his books to sign for his son, but Ohm declines. Ohm asks the bartender Fiona (Florence Ordesh) where “the big redwood” is, a place his mother has a photo at. He goes out to see the large tree and pours his parents’ ashes, then leaves the containers with his parents names in the hollow part of the tree. Walking back through the woods, Ohm encounters Jerry (David Wilmot), a local, drinking milk laced with magic mushrooms and burying a goat – Jerry offers Ohm some moonshine.

At the hotel bar, Ohm pitches Fiona his ending where the conquistador attempts to break the bottle by killing the child, but fails and walks out into the desert and dies – Fiona thinks it’s too bleak. Ohm explains how his parents came to The Bilberry Woods Hotel for their honeymoon. She asks about them, and Ohm reveals his mother was murdered and his father subsequently drank himself to death. Ohm asks about the honeymoon suite, but Fiona says Mr. Cob says it’s haunted by a witch he’s locked in there and won’t let anyone in, despite. Her asking Mal for the key. Mal won’t give it to her since he is afraid of Cob, who is his father-in-law. Fiona explains that if you are chased by the witch, you must draw a chalk circle around yourself. Alby (Will O’Connell), the bellhop, shares that he once saw the witch, which Ohm calls “hokum”. Alby tells Ohm how much he likes his books and that he writes as well, and asks Ohm to read some of his writing. Ohm rudely belittles him for being a bellhop and burns his hand with a spoon.

While closing up, Fiona finds Ohm’s wallet and tape recorder and goes to his room, concerned. She makes Alby open his room and finds that Ohm has hung himself. Ohm has visions of being in the empty hotel and his mother, and awakens in a hospital, weeks later. He returns to the hotel, now closed for the season, to retrieve his things. Mal tells Ohm that Fiona is the one who saved him, and when Ohm wants to thank her, Mal reveals Fiona has been missing for weeks, last seen at a Halloween party. Police suspect Jerry, who police have discovered disappeared after his wife died mysteriously ten years prior. Fergal saw Fiona talking to Jerry before she vanished. Ohm wonders if anyone has checked the honeymoon suite, but Fergal says it’s always locked and threateningly suggests Ohm return home.

Ohm goes to the woods searching for clues and finds Fiona’s book among Jerry’s things. Jerry admits he killed his wife, euthanizing her when she became extremely sick, but insists Fiona is his friend and that the police won’t believe him. He says that he knows Fiona is dead because a few nights back he broke into the hotel to take things out of their medicine cabinet – he saw the bell ringing for the honeymoon suite, and then Fiona’s ghost pointing to it. He believes she wants him to go there, and he intends to do so in the evening with a stolen key. Ohm doesn’t truly believe it but agrees to go with him; later Jerry tells Ohm he once saw his wife’s spirit who thanked him for ending her suffering. In the evening the two break in, but Jerry is caught by Fergal, who knocks him unconscious and loads him in his van to take to the police. All alone, Ohm sees the honeymoon suite bell ring. He goes inside, looks around, and falls asleep – in his dreams he remembers himself taking out his father’s gun which accidentally goes off, hitting his mother – and a creepy rabbit man. He is awoken by Mal, and as they leave Ohm looks in a dumbwaiter, which Mal tells him not to touch. When Ohm brings it up anyway, he discovers Fiona’s body inside – Mal flees and locks him in the suite.

In flashback to the Halloween party, Mal gives Fiona (whose costume is a rabbit) a drugged tea which makes her fall unconscious, then brings her to the honeymoon suite and loads her into the dumbwaiter. Ohm finds his tape recorder with Fiona’s body and plays it; Fiona has left a message, where she reveals she is pregnant with Mal’s baby, which made Mal terrified that his wife or father-in-law would find out. She resolves to find a way out, but if she doesn’t she asks the listener to tell her parents she loves them. Ohm begins searching for a way out of the suite. In Fergal’s van, Jerry wakes up, frees himself from his hand ties and escapes out the back of the moving vehicle.

In the suite, Ohm keeps seeing flashes of his parents and hearing noises. The TV starts, showing a children’s program with a creepy looking rabbit man. The rabbit man reads a letter from Ohm who writes that he was playing with his dad’s gun and it went off, that his mom died and his dad hates him. The rabbit man answers the letter by saying that there is no help coming and that he should be scared. In an hourglass, Ohm sees the conquistador and child pointing him in a direction – he follows it and finds a map showing fire exits through the basement. He removes Fiona’s body, and manages to take the dumbwaiter down to the lower levels. He becomes lost in the dark catacombs and plays Fiona’s tape, where she claims she thinks someone is down there with her. Ohm finds a piece of chalk, and after seeing some sort of figure in the darkness, he runs back to the dumbwaiter and returns up to the suite.

At the top, he looks down the elevator shaft and sees the witch crawling up it towards him. It enters the suite and Ohm, terrified, draws a chalk circle around himself for protection. The witch circles Ohm but then leaves. In the morning, Mal returns to the hotel and finds Jerry trying to get up to the honeymoon suite to find Ohm. Mal lies and tells Jerry that he sent a drunken Ohm in a taxi to the airport. Mal tells Jerry the police are looking for him, and just as Jerry is getting into a car to leave, Ohm rings the honeymoon suite bell. Jerry drives off, and Mal appears to have gotten away with it, but Jerry returns having figured out that Mal’s story didn’t add up. Ohm rings the suite bell again, and Jerry demands the suite key to free Ohm.

Jerry goes upstairs and manages to open the door to free Ohm, who tells him that Mal killed Fiona – just as Mal appears behind Jerry and shoots him in the head with a crossbow, killing him. Mal sets a fire to burn the hotel down and pursues Ohm, who heads back downstairs into the basement. Hearing noises and fearing the witch, Ohm begins to draw a chalk circle around himself. Mal descends into the basement and finds his keys, but is then started by the witch, who chains him up, passing by Ohm who is chained but safely in his chalk circle. Ohm’s mother’s ghost appears to him and he cries and tells him he’s sorry, that it was an accident, and she tells him she knows and that he can’t stay down there. The witch drags Mal into the underworld, while Ohm uses the blade Fiona used to cut him down when he was hanging to free himself and escape as the hotel burns down, but he passes out from the smoke before exiting the building. Fergal returns and gets Ohm out of the burning building.

Later, Alby comes to visit Ohm, who is recovering in the hospital. Alby tells Ohm that Fiona and Jerry’s bodies were found but Mal is missing. Alby guiltily confesses he’s worried the situation is his fault, because after Ohm was rude to him Alby spiked Ohm’s flask with Jerry’s mushroom powder – Ohm looks down at his wrists, still bruised from chains, and remembers Jerry telling him that the mushrooms make people see things other cannot. Alby gives Ohm the photo of his mother and the tree, but Ohm tells him he can keep it. Though Ohm again declines, Alby tells Ohm he will bring him his writing to read, and Ohm writes the ending of his conquistador story. The conquistador can not bring himself to kill the child to open the bottle, and instead has the child break the bottle on him. The child instead throws the bottle away and hugs the conquistador.

Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is an unhappy but very successful writer struggling to end his popular trilogy. He goes to Ireland to visit the hotel where his parents had their honeymoon. It is revealed that as a child Adam was playing with his father’s gun and accidentally shot and killed his mother, and his father subsequently drank himself to death. He attempts suicide in the hotel but is saved by employee Fiona.

When he awakes weeks later, he finds Fiona is missing and tries to find her. He gets inside the always locked honeymoon suite, where the owner claimed he locked a witch in, and finds Fiona’s body. Ohm discovers that she was pregnant with the married desk clerk Mal’s child, and he drugged and locked her in the honeymoon suite to keep the secret. Ohm goes into the basement and sees the witch; Mal starts a fire and goes down into the catacombs to try to silence Ohm and finds the witch, who kidnaps and takes him to the underworld. Ohm is able to protect himself by drawing a chalk circle around himself, and encounters his mother’s ghost with whom he makes peace.

The hotel burns down and the bellhop confesses to Ohm he put psychedelic mushroom in his liquor, which makes Ohm consider if any of it was real, but he comes to believe he was able to see things others were not. He then changes the ending of his novel from a depressing one to one with hope.