The TERRIFYING Irish Folklore Behind HOKUM (Explained)

Hey everyone, Welcome back to Mythology Explained. Just the other day I got a chance to see Hokum in theatres, a new horror release with some rave reviews that honestly scared the **** out of me. I went in completely blind- no trailer- having only seen scores on rotten tomatoes and imdb, and I’ve gotta say- it was pretty decent. And as far as being effective as a ‘scary’ horror movie- no complaints there either. And although I enjoyed it, I found myself on multiple occasions looking past the scares themselves and focusing on the folklore and symbolism the film was pulling from. Having a Mythology channel, I couldn’t help but think about the Irish mythology and folklore that inspired it. The rabbits, the hallucinations, the strange sense of crossing into another reality, the witch, the idea of being watched by the environment itself—it all feels rooted in much older Celtic ideas about the supernatural and the Otherworld. And the more I thought about it afterward, the more I realized that a lot of what makes the movie feel so unnerving probably comes from the fact that it’s drawing on fears and symbols that have existed in folklore for centuries. Questions answered in this video: What mythology inspired Hokum? Is the witch in Hokum based on real Irish folklore? What is Jack the Donkey in Hokum? What does the ending of Hokum mean? Is Hokum based on Celtic mythology? What is the folklore behind the Banshee in Hokum? What do the rabbit symbols in Hokum mean? Was Ohm hallucinating in Hokum? What inspired Damian McCarthy’s Hokum? What hidden mythology is inside Hokum? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices