Spoiler alert: there’s no gore. None of the slicing-and-dicing of so many in the horror genre. Astonishingly, only one corpse. What we have here is nothing more than an old-fashioned chiller. If “nothing more” sounds derogatory, it’s not intended, for some of the best horror films work by infecting your mind, making your brain rather than your eyes do all the work. With your emotions not sapped by jump scares, you’ve got all the time in the world to ponder just what is going on and if there really is a witch sequestered in the attic of a rural Irish hotel.
Any movie that begins with a father’s survival depending on killing his son sets a sensationally high bar. That action is one of the possible outcomes for alcoholic writer Ohm Bauman as he considers the ending for his best-selling trilogy. He’s in Ireland to scatter the ashes around a redwood tree in the woods near the hotel where his parents spent their honeymoon. From the way he tips the ashes out, you can tell he prefers the mother to the father.
Although there’s only one corpse, there are three murderers present and a person with suicidal tendencies. Two of the murders took place in the past – a creepy tramp in the woods who is on the run after knocking off his wife in a mercy killing and Ohm who got rid of his mother after playing with his father’s gun. And who knows what the witch got up to that’s she’s imprisoned in the hotel, a lot to do with dragging victims around in chains.
The owner of the hotel is also creepy, terrorizing young children with tales of infants losing ears and eyes to unseen monsters. The hotel manager Mal (Peter Coonan) has a short fuse, inclined to shoot a bolt from a crossbow through goats climbing onto the bonnets of guests’ parked cars.
Ohm is the opposite of the normal handsome upstanding hero. He’s nerdy, very snippy, hates his fans so much he’s inclined to deter them with some vicious unexpected action. But when hotel receptionist Fiona (Florence Ordesh) disappears, he decides to investigate.
Never a good idea. Not only does he go upstairs to the attic of a haunted house, he foolishly decides to descend into its secret basement. He’s not the type to do anyone a good deed, much less turn detective, but it turns out Fiona was the one who saved him from suicide.
There’s layers of incipient creepiness. The locked attic is actually the suite where his parents spent their honeymoon, so there’s a suggestion that somehow their lives – and therefore that of their son – were affected. The tramp gets high on magic mushrooms, as do, apparently, the goats. Even bellboy Alby (Will O’Connell) looks a shade underdone. And there’s one of those old-fashioned staff-summoning bells at reception that never rings – until it does. There are disembodied voices. The owner keeps the key to the attic hidden. Halloween briefly intrudes.
But there’s also a simplicity here of Hitchcock-shredding dimensions. When trapped in the haunted room, Ohm is nerdy enough to know how to use a knife to prize loose a screw to a hidden door to effect an escape. Trouble is, there’s two screws, and the second is impossible to work free. The bell-pull, his only other way of attracting attention, comes away in his hand. Theoretically, in Irish folklore, according to all the books at least, drawing a chalk circle around yourself will provide a safe haven. Yet if that’s the case, how come Ohm finds his hands encased in chains.
As with a number of the recent horror excursions which have broken new ground like Weapons (2025), Longlegs (2024) and Smile (2022), this turns convention upside down. The twists are rarely shocking, but cleverly build upon each other to entrap. There are two brilliant twists at the end, neither of which you will see coming, but are of the emotional rather than the shocking kind.
Best of all is the character of Ohm. If you wonder just what type of writer could dream up an ending where a father would kill his child, then watch how he gets rid of annoying fans – he heats up a teaspoon over a candle and then plunges it into his victim’s hand.
I’m not at all familiar with Adam Scott. I never saw any of the 96 episodes of Park and Recreation (2010-2015) in which he appeared and his role in Madame Web (2024) was so small he passed me by. Judging by this, he’s a real find. His delivery is spot-on and his sour demeanor brings an edge to the character.
Will O’Connell (Anniversary, 2025) as a wannabe author is the pick of the supporting cast. The parts are so well-written, each character having unusual depth, that you might well go round applauding Peter Coonan (Hidden Assets TV series, 2021), David Wilmott (Hamnet, 2025) and Brendan Conroy (The Lightkeeper, 2026) as well while Florence Ordesh (Hidden Assets TV series, 2025) is more in the fiery Maureen O’Hara vein than a simple unaffected colleen.
Written and directed by Damian McCarthy (Oddity, 2024).
If you need jump shocks to float your boat, give this a miss, but if you welcome intelligent horror it will be right up your street.
The Magnificent 60s 