Intensity: 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Written and Directed by Damian McCarthy
Damian McCarthy is back with his signature moody atmospherics and concise storytelling in his haunted-hotel feature, Hokum. Adam Scott stars as a bitter but successful novelist who has come to the Bilbury Woods Hotel in Ireland to disperse his parents’ ashes. Hokum is skillfully executed and soaked in melancholy dread and mystery, but the film is burdened by a difficult-to-like protagonist.
One of the most anticipated films arriving in the summer of 2026 is the Irish modern folk horror movie Hokum. With the critical success of Oddity (The Scariest Thing’s consensus #1 Horror Movie of 2024) and Caveat, Damian McCarthy established himself as the pre-eminent director of Irish horror. The Hokum trailer set an appropriately spooky tone and had horror fans wondering whether McCarthy could continue his hot streak, now that he had a bigger budget and a popular, hot-commodity actor in Adam Scott (Severance, Parks and Rec).
Hokum continues McCarthy’s tradition of creating a modern folk-horror environment in a damp, remote Irish rural setting. This time, the setting is the lightly decaying Billberry Woods Inn. It retains its historic charm, but the building and its environs exude a dim, damp atmosphere. An ideal setting for a ghost story.
McCarthy’s stories establish rich mysteries with highly developed, complex characters. His masterful storytelling continues, but Hokum challenges audiences to embrace a very prickly central character. Perhaps it is the incongruity that the eminently likable Scott pulls off a heel turn that feels a bit jarring. It’s all worth it, though, as this is a redemptive story. By the end of the movie, you will come to care for Ohm and root for him.
The Cast of Hokum
- Adam Scott plays Ohm Bauman, a successful American novelist who is trying to finish up his “Conquistador Trilogy” while traveling to Ireland to deposit his parents’ ashes in an Irish Inn where they had met.
- Peter Coonan plays Mal, the nervous manager of the Billberry Woods Inn.
- David Wilmot plays Jerry, a hermit in the nearby woods who frequents the Billberry Woods Inn. The Inn staff are wary of Jerry’s presence.
- Michael Patric plays Fergal, the assertive groundskeeper of the Billberry Woods Inn.
- Florence Ordesh plays Fiona, a friendly and thoughtful barkeep at the Billberry Woods Inn.
- Will O’Connell plays Alby, a bellhop at the Inn, who is an aspiring writer and a fan of Bauman. O’Connell also portrays Jack the Jackass, a strange rabbit-like host of a kid’s TV show.
- Austin Amelio plays The Conquistador, Bauman’s fictional protagonist, wandering a desert in search of hidden treasure.
- Ezra Carlisle plays the Conquistador’s loyal attendant boy.
- Mallory Adams plays Ohm’s mother
A Synopsis of Hokum
Hokum opens with the wraparound story: an Epilogue written by Ohm Bauman, showing The Conquistador wandering a remote desert with his boy attendant. The explorer realizes that in order to release the treasure map within a bottle he carries, he will need to crack it open against something hard, but the sand dune offers no surface to bludgeon. He determines that the only way to achieve his goal is to break the bottle against the boy’s skull. It’s a bleak, dystopian conclusion, devoid of hope and full of bad choices. That is Ohm’s current mindset as he leaves to, at long last, spread his parents’ ashes in Ireland.
Bauman arrives at the Billberry Inn, a lovely but worn-down country Inn. This is where his parents met. This is where he will spread their ashes. He is in a foul mood. His presence is about as close to a celebrity presence as the Inn has ever seen, and several of the Inn staffers are fans of his work. Despite the cheerful attendance by the Inn’s staff, he sourly rebuffs inquiries. Both Mal and Alby want him to read their manuscripts, but he roughly dismisses their requests. Ohm is rude to the point of burning Alby the bellboy with a candle-lit spoon. He informs Fiona, the barkeep, about why he is in Ireland, but takes no solace in her sympathy. He learns from her that the honeymoon suite, where his parents stayed, is off limits due to mysterious circumstances.
Ohm finds the big redwood tree where his parents courted, to spread their ashes. There, he encounters Jerry, a curious hermit who offers him psilocybin-infused goat’s milk. Bauman passes on the offer, but not before telling Jerry that his mother had been murdered and his father became an inconsolable drunk afterward.
The Drama Heats Up
Jerry had left his voice recorder behind at the bar, and Fiona decides to try to return it to him. Alby encourages her not to, as he is certain that Ohm will be angry. The two staffers muster the courage to return the recorder, but to their horror they find Ohm hanging from a makeshift noose in his room.
Bauman survives the attempted suicide, awakening in a hospital bed. When he returns to the Inn to recover his goods, he decides that it would be wise of him to thank and apologize to Fiona for saving him. But Fiona has gone missing while Bauman was in a coma. The locals believe that Jerry is responsible, but Bauman’s instincts tell him otherwise.
What’s more, he has been having terrible nightmares that reveal the true nature of his mother’s demise, and that there is potentially something supernatural happening in the Honeymoon Suite that connects the missing bartender and the unfortunate fate of his parents. Forces both ghostly and mundane begin to close in on Ohm, as he tries to uncover a knot of mysteries before him. His author instincts won’t let him leave this unsolved.
Evaluation of Hokum
Just like his previous films, Damian McCarthy knows how to layer a suspenseful mystery. He also knows how, and most importantly when, to introduce the clues and the causes of the case. McCarthy is adept at knowing when to drop in a jump scare, and how to do it effectively without excessive violence or gore. That’s not to say there aren’t moments of grotesqueness in this movie, but it shows supreme situational awareness that pulls off the scares effectively.
Hokum is a slow burner. But, since this is both a ghost story and a mystery, that’s to be expected. The dread is reinforced by layered story elements, along with a fantastic backdrop in the Billberry Woods Inn. Scott is clearly the central figure, but the supporting characters are all very interesting. They are sympathetic too, since they maintain real professionalism despite the abuse Bauman inflicts on them.
Remarkably, by the end of the movie, once we learn more about Bauman’s past, his character is rehabilitated. So much so that I found myself actively rooting for him in the third act, while I was definitely not cheering for him in the first two acts. Credit both the slow-building script and Scott’s subtle shifts in making Ohm Bauman a fascinating and memorable character.
Hokum is a smart film, and quite entertaining by its conclusion. You will wrestle with your allegiance in the first half of the movie, though.
The Interesting Box Office of Hokum
I couldn’t help but consider how a film like Hokum would be received at the box office.
It’s not a traditional crowd-pleasing film. There aren’t any fist-pumping moments or spectacular showy sequences. It’s a solid horror mystery from a known-quantity independent filmmaker and a crowd-favorite comedic actor in a non-comedic role. Enough time has passed since it had its theatrical run to evaluate how a film like this would do, particularly in an environment that is currently rewarding original independent horror content.
The Spring festival circuit introduced several independent horror films, and early summer offerings ushered in original content, including Obsession, Undertone, Leviticus, They Will Kill You, and Backrooms. Hollywood Studios offered little competition, save Scream 7 and Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, so independent horror had room to capture the box office.
Early buzz was strong for Hokum. The trailer was well crafted and spooky. Oddity, The Scariest Things’ consensus best horror movie of 2024, was hardly a hit, but it was widely praised within the horror community. With a $5 million budget, Hokum has made a tidy profit, with a worldwide take of $25 million. But, by comparison, Obsession and Backrooms roared into the spotlight, each sailing past the $400 million marker.
The verdict? Good, but not great performance. It turned a profit, and I’m sure NEON will be happy with the results. But, given how some of its peers ran away with the box office, it suggests that horror fans might want a little more spectacle in their horror movies.
Concluding Thoughts:
Personally, I hope McCarthy keeps making films his way. And I hope he is selective when the inevitable big-studio offer comes. A similar director, Ben Wheatley, has been making thrilling indie films in the UK (Kill List, most notably), but somewhat improbably, he got tabbed to direct The Meg 2. That wasn’t a good match. Another hot horror director, Zach Cregger, parlayed his success into Resident Evil, which, while a mediocre franchise, he managed to instill his own methodology into to great success.
It’s coming, mark my words. McCarthy is too good a storyteller not to level up.
Hokum proved that McCarthy has more excellent ideas in his creative reservoir. Adam Scott proved he can be a dramatic horror actor, playing it straight. This is definitely a satisfying watch. It is rated R for some violent/disturbing content and language. It is currently streaming for free with a Hulu subscription, and you can also rent it on Prime Video.
Hokum is continuing evidence that the golden age of horror continues to deliver smart, provocative original independent horror films. Absolutely worth a rental, and if you can find it showing on a big screen, go check it out.
Review by Eric Li
