This is my favorite of the season so far. It is a tightly plotted, well acted, intensely scary movie that had dread and psychological fear as well as enough good jolts to keep me on the edge of my seat.

The film follows Ohm Bauman, played by Adam Scott, he’s an alcoholic author working on the grim and depressing conclusion to his novel series when he takes a trip to Ireland to spread the ashes of his parents. He stays at the hotel they stayed at the last time they were happy. It turns out the hotel is home to sinister forces.

The sinister forces are not as straightforward as I anticipated when the movie started. There is talk of witches stealing people and dragging them through the underworld. There is talk of a haunted honeymoon suite. There are human forces at work in this film that also frighten and unsettle. The fact that the movie makes me afraid of every element in the movie is incredibly satisfying. As we follow Ohm on his journey, we learn that we can’t trust the room he’s in the shadows in the corners, or the people on their way to help or maybe hurt him. It was so fun to surround this character with so much danger. It left me shaken and scared in the best way.

Going hand in hand with the danger are the constant reversals we see. Just when were think we know where things are going the movie takes an unexpected turn. I was left constantly guessing which direction we were headed. Ohm makes several decisions that shocked me. He makes choices that were very clever and surprised me. The supporting characters make surprising choices some courageous and some cowardly that also brought surprise and shock. More than once in this film a character made a choice that left my jaw on the floor. It’s great to be surprised by a story.

The film was directed by Damian McCarthy an Irish filmmaker that I’ve not seen before. I need to get better acquainted with his films because the skill and craftsmanship on display here was next level. He knows how to set create and air of tension by simple camera moves and keeping things just out of frame. He has a great ear for creepy sound design, and good eye for light and shadow. He also knows when he launch the audience into hysterics with a precisely time edit revealing something horrible.

The movie taps into fears I didn’t know I had. Apparently tall, grungy, donkey-men with bulging black eyes is a nightmare I didn’t know I was afraid of until I saw him lurking over a bed in this movie. Witches stopped scaring me when Bugs Bunny first faced one in a Looney Tunes short. But this one frightened me and sent chills through my spine with dead unblinking eyes and a very disturbing way of moving through spaces. I wasn’t afraid of charming Irish inns before, but after this movie I’m going to think twice about staying at a quaint little cottage hotel.

There are only a few minor complaints I have that will spoil things, so I will talk around them for a minute. I wish there were more female characters and better developed female parts. It’s not bad, it’s just a weakness of the film. I wish the character arc had been a little bigger. Ohm is an asshole at the start of the film. A true jerk. I wish he had softened more on his journey and been a little kinder. For me it would have made the contrast sharper and more dramatically satisfying. As it is it works. I’m not saying there is no arc. I just thought a bigger conclusion would have worked better for me. But those criticisms are very minor. This is a great scary movie.

All in all this movie worked incredibly well. I loved it. It will enter my list of top scary movies. I highly recommend it. It is my cup of tea. A+