Few genres are as deeply adored and abhorred for their tropes as horror. Across a well-worn tradition of established plot beats, overplayed monsters, and lovably predictable scares, the prospect of creating something truly revitalizing not only feels foolhardy but downright herculean.

Yet, with a playful, graceful sleight of hand, Damian McCarthy’s Hokum channels our familiarity with witches and the occult into an unrelenting procession of suspenseful set pieces and enthralling imagery that, despite its capacity to viscerally unsettle, remains deeply felt and emotionally earnest. Unfolding as an immersive exercise in pure atmosphere, Hokum entwines a myriad of aesthetics, moods, and storytelling devices to create an experience that’s wholly original as it openly plunders the genre’s deep well of motifs and hallmarks.

McCarthy’s dense, layered screenplay centres on novelist Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott), whose prickly sense of superiority is only matched by his cynical mindset. As he pens a bleak ending to his famous “Conquistador Trilogy”— alternate versions of which serve as beautiful bookends—he travels to Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes.

Residing in the hotel they spent their honeymoon in, Ohm is quickly surrounded by a curious, charming cast of characters who not only face his wrath but do little to ease the anguish he carries over his parents’ untimely deaths. Paired with constant talk of local curses, strange animal behaviour, and witchcraft, the quaint Irish trappings feel less like a retreat than a prison.

After attempting to end his life, he not only becomes embroiled in a missing person’s case involving one of the hotel’s staff but also becomes trapped in the very closed-off suite his parents once occupied. While he searches for a way out and grapples with horrifying truths, he ostensibly comes face to face with the monstrous coven secretly occupying the building.

From there, McCarthy’s (mostly) single-location tale doubles as an engrossing, bewitching sandbox, melding Irish folklore, old-school horrors, gothic hotel architecture, and even psilocybin to form a tender, stylistically diverse treatise on guilt, grief, and the healing power of storytelling itself.

As it teeters between being a grounded thriller and a supernatural horror, Hokum finds potent parallels in the murky morals of the human condition through Ohm’s struggle to survive an unnerving, nail-biting onslaught of pursuing witches. For how overwhelming and absorbing it becomes, the film’s true magic trick lies in how life-affirming and empathetic it remains amid its escalating sense of dread— a rare feat in a genre often defined by its mean spirit and bleak outlook.

Much of the effect is the result of McCarthy’s sharp, shadow-ensnared imagery and playful editing, which weaponizes our imagination while retaining a gorgeous sense of texture and detail. Rapid cuts to small automatons, figurines, or mental apparitions during moments of tension convey complete ideas without relying on spoken exposition. As a result, Hokum feels personal and authentic despite unspooling as an escalating funhouse of pure, unadulterated dread.

With the veracity of the film’s eerie events in constant question, McCarthy’s film retains impact through a commitment to character. Peter Coonan and David Wilmot’s Irish bumpkins brim with sin and tragedy, but it’s Scott’s career-best turn that underscores the film’s emotional and thematic core—infusing a tangible sense of empathy into an otherwise condescending prick.

As Hokum terrifies, uplifts, and engrosses, it transforms haunted house gimmicks into a sincere plane of sombre introspection. A ghost story that makes us smile and shudder in equal measure.

Hokum is in theatres May 1.