It’s hard to review a film when you’ve got your eyes closed for half of it. This is a conundrum of the horror genre, and perhaps the reason why a lot of horror films are bad films. When the emphasis is on fear, cheap tricks and jump scares, it becomes easy to construct formulaic, unoriginal and simply boring films. Do we need another haunted house? Cursed object? Idiotic group of teenagers outrunning a chainsaw? I see horror as a Venn diagram: you have ‘good horror films’ and ‘good films’, and very, very occasionally, the two overlap. The recent Academy Award success of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a testament to the potential of the horror genre, and it is a good film because the fear far outstrips the villains, delving artfully into history and the evils of humanity, into slavery and colonialism and the loss of community. As a horror enthusiast (introduced to Annabelle and The Conjuring at the tender age of thirteen), I make a case for the genre, for the thematic potential that lies behind the tarpit of ghosts, demons and witches.

I recently saw Hokum, an Irish folk-horror film by Damian McCarthy, starring Adam Scott. Ohm Bauman, a cynical and reclusive novelist, visits a remote Irish hotel to scatter his parents’ ashes, only to become embroiled in a shocking disappearance and tales of an ancient witch haunting. For a film packed with spine-chilling shots of supernatural beings and disfigured creatures, the most horrifying aspects of the film are those rooted firmly in the real. For beyond the terror of monsters and supernatural creatures lies a story of human panic, pain and the unshakable horror of guilt.

“For most of us, true terror lies in the everyday”

After an attempted suicide at the beginning of the film, Ohm returns to the hotel to collect his belongings, only to discover that Fiona, the staff member who discovered his attempt, has been missing for weeks. With help from Jerry, a local homeless man who is convinced that Fiona’s ghost is trapped in the hotel, Ohm breaks into the Honeymoon Suite, a strictly locked and abandoned room, apparently haunted by a witch. And haunted by a witch it is. But Ohm becomes trapped in the room with more horrors than one. It is soon revealed that as a child, Ohm accidentally shot his mother while playing with his father’s gun. Wherever he turns, he sees the ghost of his mother, the physical manifestation of his own guilt. It is this deeply rooted sense of guilt that defines Ohm’s character and provides the main thematic thread of the film. And in turn, it is this thematic thread that elevates the film from a ‘good horror film’ to a good film.

“Hokum is far from the only horror film to surpass the scary”

We gather that Ohm’s father never forgave him. A hideously deformed figure of a children’s tv host provides a saccharine account of the incident. While an unsympathetic and abrasive figure, Ohm is painfully lonely, spiralling into alcoholism and hopelessness. As most of the film takes place within the haunted Honeymoon Suite, we can imagine the space as the limits of Ohm’s mind and the site of his reckoning. Indeed, it is only with Ohm’s symbolic forgiveness of his childhood actions that he escapes his fate and survives. Hokum is far from the only horror film to surpass the scary. Guilt is a central theme to Hereditary, a staple of the modern horror genre. Grief is another insightful theme that is explored in recent releases like Bring Her Back, a powerful and haunting film that explores the terrifying lengths a grieving mother will go to for her daughter.

What does it take for a horror film to stand out? Originality, certainly, especially in a genre that can often feel so derivative. But I don’t think horror has to be that way. For most of us, true terror lies in the everyday. It’s losing the people we love, wasting our own potential, feeling unsafe. It’s the crippling weight of guilt and wondering how we can overcome it.

In this way, Hokum does something that the horror genre would do best to follow: it makes you feel more than just fear.