I've been a fan of writer-director Damian McCarthy since I was fortunate enough to see his first short film, "Hatch", screened at a horror movie festival years ago. With this, his third full film, I am delighted to say that he is three for three when it comes to his feature filmography. He also seems to have developed a confidence in his own abilities with each success. That explains why he can stand by a film titled Hokum, considering all of the ways in which the definition of that word could be used against him by those who may not appreciate this as much as I did.
Adam Scott plays Ohm Bauman, a writer struggling with his latest work, and struggling to keep going through life accompanied by what may be some spirit caused by a past tragedy. He heads off to an isolated hotel in Ireland to deal with both of these things at once, soon becoming involved in some unnerving incidents that tie the history of the building to his own mental state.
At the heart of Hokum is something very traditional and familiar. It's the kind of cosy, supernatural-tinged, mystery that wouldn't feel out of place if seriously edited down and presented on the BBC during the Christmas holiday season. What McCarthy does with the various elements, however, is brilliant and impressive. He takes time to layer everything throughout, leading viewers by the hand to a finale that somehow grows in power and impact as you spend more time thinking about it.
Using the same visual style that he delivered so well in Oddity (which was a slight step away from the way he depicted things in Caveat), McCarthy is happy to keep viewers right alongside his main character as events play out. There are no big twists here, not if you've seen one or two other tales in this vein, but a lot of the enjoyment comes from watching McCarthy work so expertly with the tropes and audience expectations. Then you get the extra reward once you've spent some time noticing how McCarthy dotted every i and crossed every t.
Scott is fantastic in the lead role, happy to portray his figure as someone unbothered by others taking a dislike to him. He's a grump, to put it mildly, but transforms throughout the runtime as viewers learn about the parts of his life that he's tried to keep buried deep within himself for many years. Florence Ordesh is a small ray of light in the role of Fiona, although she's sadly not onscreen for too long, and Peter Coonan, Michael Patric, and Will O'Connell do well as other hotel staff members. There's also a wonderful turn from David Wilmot, playing a man with his own dark past that makes him either very useful or very dangerous.
I don't want to give in to recency bias, but I am tempted to sit Hokum just slightly above the previous two features from McCarthy. I initially viewed it as simply being on a par with those, another blend of the macabre and the dark comedy that McCarthy handles so well. It just has a bit more to it though, and I think it's a near-perfect slice of horror that has surprising depths of emotion contained within the heart of it.
9/10
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