Hokum

Visiting the wilds of Ireland to scatter his parent’s ashes, Adam Scott’s cantankerous horror novelist Ohm Bauman checks into the Bilberry Weeds Hotel. An arrogant, insufferable tool, Bauman’s dark cloud pisses on everyone he meets – from the hotel bellhop to the local crank, who warns him dark forces lurk in the woods. When a hotel employee goes missing, convinced her body’s in the honeymoon suite, Bauman breaks into the forbidden room – a dismal, fetid pit of mildewed wood, creaking doors, a ragged four-poster bed and an undrained jacuzzi just waiting for Bauman to get sheep-dipped in. It’s also rumoured to house a witch. 

It’s here where auteur Damian Mc Carthy launches a sustained assault of nerve-jangling horrorcraft. Alone, trapped, his own demons surfacing as his mind unravels, Bauman’s only way out appears to be a dumbwaiter down to the hotel’s basement. Descending into a bricked-up catacomb, slow zooms grope through unlit corridors and unseen horrors lurk in the cackling dark…

Tempting as it is to tag this the Irish Shining, Hokum’s horror hotel draws heavily on the spirit of Barton Fink – the tortured writer, the decrepit interiors, the clanking caged elevators and chirpy bellboy. But this is very much a Mc Carthy movie, and those familiar with Caveat and Oddity will note all of his signatures are present – the eerie figurines, sharp tinging bells, his deeply peculiar rabbit fetish. Punctured with jump scares to puncture the unease, it’s also his most mainstream chiller to date, lifted by the presence of a big name star. Adam Scott comes with horror-comedy baggage (Krampus, Little Evil), but aside the odd sarcastic snarl, he plays it straight and increasingly haggard. His soul is as wrecked as the room that’s ensnared him, and his slow plunge to hell is horribly compelling. 

You’ll stagger from the cinema with an icy finger dragging down your spine

Deploying negative space, a corpse-grey palette and a haunted-kettle soundscape, Mc Carthy is a master of under-the-skin atmosphere. As a writer, however, he’s something of a mad taxidermist. Hokum’s mystery is so overstuffed with cryptic backstories, the denouement is strewn with narrative sawdust, and he struggles to sew up every subplot.

Maybe a sequel will shed light on the hag’s origins. Maybe Mc Carthy feels a hint of folklore is enough for the audience to fill in the gaps. If Hokum feels a little unresolved, when it works, it’s quite an experience. Like the best ghost stories, you’ll stagger from the cinema with your goosebumps pipped and an icy finger dragging down your spine. 

In cinemas worldwide May 1.