Directed by: Damian McCarthy
Written by: Damian McCarthy
Run Time: 1 hour 47 minutes

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Reality is stranger than fiction in Damian McCarthy’s third feature outing, Hokum. Adam Scott (Severance, Step Brothers) stars as Ohm Bauman, a successful American horror fiction writer on a pilgrimage to scatter his parents’ ashes in Ireland, where they had honeymooned many years ago.

Staying at the very same isolated hotel his parents had visited, Bauman is a welcome addition to the pantheon of silver screen ‘lit jerks’; an antisocial, cruelly deadpan loner with an implacable stare, perfectly played by Scott — think an even grouchier version of Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets (1997).

Denied the opportunity to see the honeymoon suite his parents stayed in due to it being under closely guarded lock and key — the locals believe the trapped spirit of a witch haunts the room — Bauman proceeds to drink himself into a stupor. However, he is violently shaken out of his morose state when hotel employee Fiona (Florence Ordesh), the only bright spark of his stay, suddenly goes missing. Bauman’s intuition and the audience’s guts point in only one direction: the forbidden honeymoon suite.

Hokum operates in the murky in-between spaces, where the real and unreal mix, in forbidden rooms, tight, claustrophobic passageways and deeply buried past traumas. It’s an intensely psychological horror that blends fiction, memory, perception and ‘reality’. McCarthy’s comedic beats are dark, but the hearts of men are darker still. The ‘real world’ is almost more horrific than the unfolding terror, almost.

The film is set up like a mystery, but never quite goes down that path. It’s a strategy that allows some breathing room for Hokum to slowly and steadily move through its gears, and when it finally hits top speed, it has its audience crawling up the walls to escape the theatre (in the best way possible!).

Scott’s unravelling cynicism proves as crucial to the film’s effectiveness as its high-gear, edited-within-an-inch-of-their-life sequences. While he’s also ably supported by the perpetually disgruntled Michael Patric, Will O’Connell, Florence Ordesh and the chameleon-like David Wilmot (Calvary, Lies We Tell). Wilmot’s homeless drifter Jerry in particular could have devolved into cliche in a lesser actor’s hands, but Wilmot manages to balance a sense of doubt and unpredictability with empathy and humour.

Hokum boasts some potent horror imagery, but there’s a sense that its most jarring and memorable example may be underutilised — warped children’s television is often a rich resource for nightmare fuel and here is no different. Similarly, key characters such as Peter Coonan’s Mal feel a tad underdeveloped.

Make no mistake though, Hokum is a challenging and rewarding horror that echoes films like The Innocents (1961), The Haunting (1963) and even Hellraiser (1987). Director Damian McCarthy’s previous outing, Oddity (2024) had its high points and found further success when it reached streaming on Shudder, but Hokum is a more complete film overall, and one that sets up McCarthy’s next chapter as a must-see for any and all horror fans.

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Star Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

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