Hokum (2026) Neon/Horror RT: 107 minutes Rated R (some violent/disturbing content, language) Director: Damian McCarthy Screenplay: Damian McCarthy Music: Joseph Bishara Cinematography: Colm Hogan Release date: May 1, 2026 (US) Cast: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh, Michael Patric, Will O’Connell, Brendan Conroy, Austin Amelio, Ezra Carlisle, Mallory Adams, Sioux Carroll.
Rating: ***
Who doesn’t love a good ghost story? The best part of summer camp was sitting around a campfire in the woods at night listening to a counselor spin a scary yarn while the other kids pretended not to be even a little bit scared. This is why I enjoy films like The Uninvited (1944), Poltergeist (1982), The Sixth Sense (1999), The Conjuring (2013) and now Hokum.
Written and directed by Damian McCarthy (Oddity), Hokum relies on good, old fashioned suspense and “BOO!” moments rather than noise and bad CGI to give audiences what they came for, chills and thrills and a few good scares. It quietly creeps up on you instead of screaming loudly in your face. To me, that’s the more effective way to tell a scary tale involving ghosts and haunted places. I think anybody over the age of 35 will agree with me.
Adam Scott (The Monkey) plays Ohm Bauman, a miserable writer haunted by a past tragedy involving his family. He decides to take a trip to Ireland to spread his long-deceased parents’ ashes. He gets a room at the inn where they stayed on their honeymoon. It’s a cozy, quaint place supposedly haunted by the spirit of a witch. It’s why the honeymoon suite is locked down and off limits to guests and staff. Of course, Ohm is just a little curious.
Let me tell you a little bit about Ohm. He’s a rude and arrogant dick. He hates being recognized. He refuses to sign copies of his books. When a bellboy and aspiring writer (O’Connell) asks him to read his manuscript, Ohm burns him with a red-hot spoon. Something obviously happened in his past to make him this way. That first night, he tries to hang himself in his room. He’s saved by staff members.
When Ohm returns to the inn to collect his belongings, he’s told by a staff member that the bartender Fiona (Ordesh) has gone missing without a trace. The police have been by many times and seem to think a local homeless guy (Wilmot, Hamnet) might know something about it. Ohm, letting curiosity get the best of him, sticks around to see what he can find out. It might somehow be connected to the forbidden room at the inn.
I saw Hokum at an AMC Scream Unseen event this past Monday night. I like going to those because they usually show films that end up not playing at my local AMC. I don’t know if they’ll be getting this one, but it’d be cool if they did. If audience reaction is any indication, horror fans are going to love it. I typically hang out in the lobby afterwards to compare notes with other regulars. They all raved. I heard nothing but positive comments from attendees leaving the theater. I don’t know if we’re looking at the next horror classic here, but it definitely belongs in the same company as the titles I mentioned earlier.
Adam Scott isn’t the first name you think of when it comes to horror. It’s more likely you’ll think of his popular series Succession or a comedy like Step Brothers (2008) or The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) when his name is mentioned. He’s actually been in a few horrors over the years. He was in Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Krampus (2015) and last year’s The Monkey. While I don’t think he’s the greatest actor in the world, he is pretty good in the right part. He does solid work in Hokum as a troubled man haunted by guilt that literally follows him throughout the movie. He makes it believable by keeping his performance restrained. He never once resorts to histrionics or exaggerated freaking out. It’s the right creative choice on his part.
The cinematography by Colm Hogan is top-shelf work. He films scenes in such a way that the horrible thing lurking about goes almost unnoticed. There’s no dramatic build-up or warning signs. A character will be walking down a dark hallway or corridor and something will quietly move into the frame behind him. Things are helped along by an eerie score from Joseph Bishara. It sets the tone without dominating the scene. McCarthy pulls it all together nicely. He makes the suspense palpable and the “BOO!” scenes genuinely startling.
Some are calling McCarthy the new master of horror. I can’t speak to that as this is the first of his movies I’ve seen. I still haven’t watched Oddity even though it’s been in my queue for almost two years. I really need to get on that. I can say that Hokum is a good scary movie. It has a few pacing issues here and there, but it doesn’t affect things too much. I love how it plays with your mind, especially in the final scene. I won’t say what happens, but it’ll have you questioning what you just saw. When a movie does that, you know it’s done its job well.
