Hokum

I was really excited to see this film after watching the trailer and hearing so many positive reviews, but unfortunately I can’t agree with the praise. Spoilers ahead!

The visuals are pretty nice, and the setting works well at first. I especially liked the opening scenes where Ohm is haunted by something or someone. But unfortunately, the atmosphere falls apart fairly quickly, at least for me.

One scene I genuinely liked was how the creators showed Ohm’s relationship with his parents through the way he disposed of their ashes. That was a strong scene.

At the same time, I think the film is overstuffed with unnecessary crime and drama — the storyline with Fiona being killed by her lover Mal, the whole mess with him trying to kill Ohm, and then the paranormal subplot with the witch all feel like too much crammed into one film.

The witch in the basement reminded me of Fréwaka, another Irish folk horror, and there might actually be a connection there, though I’m not sure.

I understood that the film is about guilt, ‘cause Ohm accidentally killed his mother, and that’s a genuinely interesting topic. But it felt pretty poorly handled here. Ironically, I think The Woman in the Yard (2025) — which got a lot of negative feedback — dealt with guilt more effectively than this film did.

The ending was also pretty cheap: Ohm gets caught by the witch, and then the ghost of his mother appears to help him escape. It felt like the creators simply didn’t know how to finish the story and defaulted to a happy ending.

And speaking of happy endings: I found it very vanilla and clichéd that Ohm rewrote his book with a positive conclusion rather than a realistic or dark one. One traumatic experience doesn’t change or fix a person that quickly, and the film doesn’t earn that resolution.