Neon will release Hokum, the upcoming supernatural horror film from Irish writer-director Damian McCarthy, in cinemas on 1 May 2026.
Starring Adam Scott (The Whisper Man, “Severance”), the film follows Mc Carthy’s breakout success Oddity, which premiered at SXSW and took home the festival’s Midnighter Audience Award, helping to establish him as a voice to be reckoned with in contemporary genre cinema.
In Hokum, Scott plays Ohm Bauman, a surly, solitary novelist who travels to a remote seaside inn in Ireland to scatter his parents’ ashes. What was intended as a brief retreat to find closure soon spirals into an absolute nightmare.
The inn’s staff and local residents speak of a long-standing legend — a witch said to haunt the honeymoon suite — and, when a member of staff mysteriously disappears, Bauman finds himself plagued by unsettling visions and fragments of a past he thought long buried, forcing him to confront the darkest corners of his own history.
To mark the film’s release this May, CinemaChords sat down with Mc Carthy, who shared his desire to rejuvenate the haunted hotel subgenre — one he feels has been sorely missed — and the importance of grounding the supernatural in reality, making the sceptical Bauman’s journey all the more convincing.
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