by Anthony O’Connor
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh, Michael Patric
Intro:
… an effective, classic spookshow that is very likely to crawl under your skin …
[Warning: this review contains mild spoilers for Hokum’s first act. They’re minor but if you want to go in totally blind, probs best just go see the movie. It’s good!]
It’s always a bit nerve wracking when a writer or director gets hailed as the “next big thing in horror”. It happened with Clive Barker back in the 1980s when Stephen King boldly announced “I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker”. Mr. Barker then went on to produce a couple of horror projects (notably Hellraiser and Nightbreed) but mainly focused on dark fantasy after that. Ol’ mate Ari Aster was touted as the genre’s next daddy after Hereditary and Midsommar, but subsequently the bloke pivoted to surreal black comedy and social commentary. Point is, it’s never a great idea to announce that a certain creative is the saviour of cinema’s spiciest genre because those words can age terribly. All that being said, Irish writer/director Damian Mc Carthy makes a bloody good horror flick. He started with the lowkey but respected Caveat (2020), however it wasn’t until 2024’s Oddity that audiences sat up and took notice. Slowburn but very tense, Oddity announced Mc Carthy as a genre force to be reckoned with.
And now, with his third film Hokum, it’s fair to say Damo’s got the goods.
Hokum is the story of suicidally depressed, misanthropic writer Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott), a deeply damaged human being who heads to Ireland to spread the ashes of his long dead parents. While staying at the Bilberry Woods Hotel, Ohm meets a bunch of colourful locals, sneers at the locked and “haunted” Honeymoon suite and tries to hang himself one drunken evening. He survives the attempt thanks to the timely intervention of hotel worker Fiona (Florence Ordesh), however when he returns to thank her, it’s revealed that she’s gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Keen to redeem himself, Ohm sets out on a mission to find Fiona, a quest that may lead him to dark places that will have him questioning the very nature of reality and rethinking his perpetual cynicism.
To be honest, Hokum’s first act is a little ungainly. Its tone feels uneven, veering between drama and comedy, and there are so many disparate subplots and red herrings, one would be forgiven for thinking that there’s no way this thing could satisfyingly tie together. The good news is that when Mc Carthy finally unleashes the spooky shenanigans, he does so with great alacrity, showcasing a 20-30 minute stretch where even your jaded genre veteran scribe was on the edge of his seat. Mc Carthy’s atmospheric direction, Adam Scott’s understated but brilliant performance and a script that manages to juggle a lot of balls despite its relatively short runtime, all combine for an old fashioned but clever horror experience that immediately announces itself as one of the year’s best.
Deliciously creepy, full of grand performances from a mostly Irish cast (big props to the wonderful David Wilmot) and utilising folkloric elements cleverly, Hokum is an effective, classic spookshow that is very likely to crawl under your skin and have you scribbling chalk circles around your bed.
