Hokum review: 'strangely effective'
Damien McCarthy’s horror film plays like a dream that doesn’t quite make sense but rattles you all the same, writes Alistair Harkness
Hokum (15) ★★★
It’s a bold choice to name a horror film Hokum, but Irish writer-director Damien McCarthy mostly gets away with it thanks to his facility with jump scares and a prickly performance from Severance star Adam Scott.
He plays Ohm Bauman, a cynical American novelist visiting a creepy hotel deep in the Irish countryside, ostensibly to scatter the ashes of his long-since deceased parents (who honeymooned there), but also to stave off completing the final instalment of a bleak trilogy of fantasy novels that have been successful enough to turn him into an entitled asshole, one who abuses his fans and drinks to silence his demons.
The hotel itself is haunted by a witch, a legend the owner and staff believe in to such a degree they keep the honeymoon suite where Ohm’s parents once stayed locked off from the public to contain the evil lurking within.
“Hokum,” is Ohm’s assessment of this story and it might be yours too as the film ratchets up its supernatural elements. And yet McCarthy’s willingness to marry outré elements involving Irish folklore and magic mushrooms to a character dealing with some horribly dark psychological trauma works in a strangely effective way — like a dream that doesn’t quite make sense, but rattles you all the same.
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