The Hiccup Man
2024 · 12m
Directed by Nate Fischer
Two friends renting an Airbnb stumble on a sinister poem about the Hiccup Man, and the nursery rhyme summons a malevolent entity that only stops when Sarah's hiccups do.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A nursery rhyme summoning curse that hinges on *hiccups* — it's ridiculous enough to be genuinely unsettling, and Fischer leans into that absurdist horror sweet spot where the absurdity IS the dread, which most horror scouts would've neutered into something safer.
The film sits somewhere between contemporary folk-horror and body-horror traditions, though the hiccup mechanics feel gimmicky rather than formally purposeful; the editing competence is there, but the premise doesn't quite earn the weight it's reaching for.
The sound design around the hiccups — that repetitive, involuntary rhythm as the primary horror vector — is the choice that makes this work; it's a commitment to an unglamorous physicality that transforms a 12-minute premise into something genuinely claustrophobic.
Festivals
- Spooktacular Film Fest for Horror & Sci-Fi 2024, Official Selection