Damian McCarthy is the real deal! Following the lo-fi, skin-crawling sleeper smash Oddity, he returns with Hokum – a film that proves his previous success was no fluke. Much like its predecessor, Hokum is a slow-burn masterclass in dread that digs into deeply unsettling themes, served with a side of pitch-black wit, proving that McCarthy’s just as savage with a punchline as he is with his jump-scares.
A compelling blend of ghost story, character study, and darkly comedied descent into grief-stricken paranoia, Hokum is as fascinating and entertaining as it is poignant, uncomfortable, and anxiety-inducing.
Adam Scott turns in an impeccable, nuanced performance as Ohm Bauman, a reclusive and surly novelist who heads to a secluded, windswept Irish inn on the coast. Once there, his plans to scatter his parents’ ashes and find some kind of closure are quickly derailed by local legends of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite.
Now, on paper, “troubled writer in a haunted hotel” sounds like well-trodden territory. Indeed, the shadows of The Shining loom large over the hotel and its corridors. But McCarthy’s nods never feel derivative. For this reviewer, it is a psychological chiller that sits comfortably alongside other troubled-writer tales such as 1408 or Secret Window — both coincidentally Stephen King adaptations — films that understand the most frightening place is often inside the protagonist’s own head.
What’s particularly impressive is how skillfully the film handles its abundance of scares. Hokum is filled with jolts, but each one is delivered with deft precision and purpose, not as a cheap gimmick. McCarthy consistently keeps the audience on edge, training audiences’ eyes to scour every corner of the frame for whatever might suddenly appear in the limited radius of Bauman’s lantern beam. Every shock is meticulously staged and sharply timed, proving that even the most familiar horror device can work wonders in the right hands.
Then there’s the humour, which is handled with real care. Scott plays Bauman as a man whose grief has curdled into a prickly, defensive, “me-against-the-world” sarcasm; someone who’s deeply impatient with everyone around him. Much of the comedy comes from his dismissive treatment of well-meaning strangers and his bafflement at local Irish customs. It is a dynamic that gives the film a personality of its own without ever winking at the audience. That sense of humour also works in favour of the horror, deepening character and making the surrounding unease feel all the more believable.
Perhaps Hokum’s greatest strength, which is also related to the aforementioned humour, is the emotional grounding beneath the film’s supernatural trappings. For viewers who need a firm tether to reality in their ghost stories — myself very much included — the film provides exactly that through Bauman’s journey. Watching him move from standoffish sceptic to quite the opposite gives the narrative real dramatic momentum, and Scott’s performance ensures we remain invested in a character who could easily have become alienating, unbelievable, or a broad pastiche in lesser hands. Spending almost the entire film in his company is never anything less than compelling.
With Hokum, McCarthy delivers another stylish, smartly constructed, deeply satisfying slice of horror cinema. It’s a film that manages to be atmospheric without being indulgent, frightening without feeling hollow, and resonant without ever slipping too far into melodrama. Held together by a clinical central performance and guided by a director who’s firmly found his groove, Hokum is one of the most entertaining, terrifying and wholly satisfying genre films of recent years.
VERDICT:
Neon will release Hokum in cinemas on May 1, 2026.
