‘Hokum’ review: for good and ill, this haunted hotel chiller earns its title

Well, they were really asking for it with that title, weren’t they? With jump-in-your-seat scares, supernatural silliness and a hodgepodge of spooky cinematic references, Hokum is a bubbling Irish stew from West Cork-born writer and director Damian McCarthy. He throws everything into the pot: local folkloric tales of an evil witch, a magic mushroom-gobbling oddball who lives in the woods, a basement that holds dark secrets. The first few slurps go down a treat, but ultimately the clashing flavours overpower one another. Sometimes less...