With Oddity, the Irish director Damian McCarthy confirmed his worth as a craftsman of unnerving precision, capable of mixing and matching such tropes as a cursed object, infidelity, a psychiatric hospital and murder.
With Hokum he similarly juggles competing themes and evils into a rangy, disconcerting new animal with a folkish, rabbity form. This is not horror gussied up as allegory or prestige: it is, pleasingly, a straight ghost story, executed with rigour, a swipe at misogyny and a sly sense of fun. Joseph Bishara’s score keeps pace.
Adam Scott excels on all these registers as Ohm Bauman, a brusque “genius” novelist who retreats to an isolated Irish hotel to scatter his parents’ ashes. The location comes with its own folklore: a sealed honeymoon suite said to harbour a witch.
When a female employee (Florence Ordesh) disappears after a Halloween party, Ohm’s reluctant grief coalesces into obsession, pulling him towards both the mystery and the trauma of his parents’ deaths.
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Working with the cinematographer Colm Horgan, McCarthy keeps the framing tight, wringing tension from a handful of rooms and one dumb waiter. The film’s visual language – boxed images, encroaching darkness – curtsies to classics such as The Shining and The Innocents without feeling second-hand.
Real-world reveals concerning Peter Coonan’s receptionist and David Wilmot’s forest-dwelling wild man ought to crowd out the supernatural elements, but McCarthy’s flair for lingering dread maintains the spookiness.
The film’s carefully calibrated tone allows for moments of pitch-black humour even when the action drags us to the bowels of hell.
Scott anchors the film with a performance of prickly restraint. His Ohm is not especially likeable, and the film is better for it. More bad good guys, please.
In cinemas from Friday, May 1st
