Damian McCarthy has a real talent for crafting creepy, atmospheric horror films that are as simple as they are terrifying. His previous film, Oddity, was an unsettling murder mystery taking place in a house in the remote Irish wilderness. It was simple, horrifying, and deeply unsettling. With his latest feature, Hokum, he works in that same lane, but you feel him refining his craft, becoming more confident with every unsettling frame.
When novelist Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott, Severance), retreats to a remote inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, he is consumed by tales of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite. Disturbing visions and a shocking disappearance force him to confront dark corners of his past.
From the opening moments of Hokum, McCarthy immediately immerses audiences into the uneasy atmosphere of the Billberry Woods Hotel. Between goats are destroying peoples’ cars and guests getting high on mushrooms, there is something off about the hotel. It is not the dated interior design or its isolated location. For example, the honeymoon suite is locked behind a metal gate with a guard present at all times. The owner of the hotel claims that there is an ancient witch imprisoned in the suite that will claim the souls of anyone who stays the night. Ohm believes it is nothing but hokum, until Irish folklore stops feeling like myth and begins closing in on him. With a larger budget at his disposal, McCarthy leans into the single-location setup and turns it into something genuinely haunting.
As with McCarthy’s previous work, his horror thrives in atmosphere, ambience, and tension. Hokum is no different. The cinematography is drenched in dark, Gothic palettes. The production design features the right amount of grime to make one’s skin crawl. Moreover, the sound design ensures that every creek, distant thud, and pin-drop of silence dials up the tension to keep one on edge. These elements create an unnerving atmosphere where the darkness feels like it will pounce on you at any moment.
And when it pounces, you will definitely jump out of your seat. A lot of the horror leans into jump scare territory, but McCarthy knows how they actually work. Once Ohm is trapped in the honeymoon suite, he investigates searching for a way out, much like a video game. At first, it just seems like a dark, dirty room. However, once the claustrophobia, suffocating darkness, and distant moans start to wear Ohm down, his reality begins to slip and panic sets in. McCarthy stretches this tension to its breaking point. Once it snaps, Hokum delivers some of the most effective jolts in recent memory.
Yet for all of the horror Hokum gets right, it does start to feel a little too familiar. This is the second time where McCarthy has built a story around a protagonist investigating a mystery in a single location. Although the source of the horror has shifted from a wooden puppet to a dirty hotel room, the feeling of déjà vu is hard to ignore. Furthermore, he attempts to add layers to Ohm, played brilliantly by Scott, by giving him a tragic backstory. Ohm is an alcoholic novelist who is bitter and lashes out at just about everyone because he hasn’t processed a traumatic event from his childhood. However, this backstory doesn’t click with the overall narrative. One could perhaps strip that entire thread from the film without losing anything.
Overall, Hokum is another (mostly) solid reminder of McCarthy’s promising as an indie horror director. He knows how to build a creepy haunted house, and effectively builds tension through the use of silence in a singular room. While the film does feel a bit too familiar and is a bit of a mess narratively, it is hard not to break free from its simple yet ultimately effective horror.
