New horror film Hokum has a chilling scene that’s still burnt into my brain

Hokum is a fun, self-aware title for a horror film when that genre can often be so easily dismissed as such. But this movie is ready to convince you otherwise.

You get your first jump scare less than five minutes in. It’s a warning that this movie enjoys employing that device. Is it original? No. But is it effective? Yes.

What is more original about this latest film from Oddity filmmaker Damian McCarthy is its decision to not take itself seriously without indulging in the cheap gags or bad acting that normally dominates comedy-horror blends.

This isn’t a splatter movie. In fact, Hokum manages to retain its supernatural chill throughout, even when you’re smirking over its dry jokes.

But make no mistake, there are some properly frightening moments, including a split-second in one scene that’s so beautifully simple yet traumatising that I doubt I’ll forget it.

Severance star Adam Scott is weirdly delightful as grumpy and troubled author Ohm Bauman who, while struggling with his latest book, decides to take a trip to rural Ireland to spread the ashes of his late parents.

He heads to the last place he knows they were happy, holing up in a faded hotel run by eccentric Irish staff.

The first unsettling – and rather baffling – sight he’s met with is the carcass of a goat that’s been shot dead for trying to climb on a car. ‘Shooing’ and spraying with a hose weren’t options, he’s told.

Ohm is invited to the hotel’s annual Hallowe’en party and, after ‘craic’ is explained to him in no uncertain terms, requests the room furthest away. He also refuses to sign a book. Later he describes someone to their face as an ‘oblivious charisma vacuum completely incapable of reading a room’. As you can tell, he’s a real ray of sunshine.

But things get weird when he meets local vagrant Jerry (a fantastic David Wilmot) in the woods, who offers him moonshine and confirms the goats are all high on a local supply of magic mushrooms. They’re naturally attracted to ‘shiny surfaces’ when clambering all over people’s vehicles.

He’s also been warned that a witch haunts the hotel’s honeymoon suite, which is never rented out, hidden behind a metal-gated lift to the top floor. Perhaps predictably, Ohm calls this ‘hokum’.

When hotel worker Fiona (Florence Ordesh) goes missing though, and Jerry is convinced he can find an answer in the honeymoon suite, Ohm finds himself sucked into a terrifying nightmare.

Cue plenty of creaking doors, jangling bells and glimpsed-at ghouls in the background, while Ohm also battles with being haunted by memories of his late mother, who we learn was shot.

Even here, Hokum retains its humour in an entertaining way, from the knowing faces of the room’s chintzy cherub ornaments to a ghost with no concept of personal space walking directly behind Ohm. As in, mirroring his every move like a shadow that’s glued to him. I left the screening with that image branded on my brain it was so creepy – and yet, I still laughed.

That’s the unique power of Hokum.

However, it runs out of steam with its main character trapped in the room and trying to survive. While it continues to keep you on edge, the threat of the lurking witch is stretched thinly over the rest of the film.

There’s some intriguing human drama that comes into play, including a couple of twists – one I guessed, one I didn’t – but in places it chips away at the twisted atmosphere McCarthy has so far conjured, as well as our suspension of disbelief.

And while the ending is neat enough, it left some of its foundations underexplained, a frustrating characteristic of horror (and a personal pet peeve).

Having said this, more horror films should aspire to be like Hokum: unafraid to showcase smart humour alongside genuinely unnerving elements.

Its cast, which also includes Peter Coonan, Will O’Connell and Michael Patric, are all universally superb as well, helping to elevate the experience Hokum offers above standard fare in the genre.

Hokum is in cinemas from today.

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