Whisper House Press

Film: Hokum

Director: Damian McCarthy

Writer: Damian McCarthy

Key Actors: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Odesh

Production Companies: Spooky Pictures, Image Nation Abu Dhabi, Tailored Films, Cweature Features, and Team Thrives

Distribution in the USA: Neon Films (I LOVE Neon films.)

Distribution in the UK: Black Bear Pictures

Release Date: 1 May, 2026

Capone’s Rating: 5⭐ out of 5⭐

SubGenre Notes: Folk Horror, Witch Horror, Claustrophobia, Supernatural

Film Content Warnings: Suicide, hanging, gun violence, parent death 

Spoiler Warning: While I try to avoid spoilers, some are inevitable. If you don’t want spoilers, don’t read this analysis. Just go see the picture.

Find Robert Zerbe’s review of the same film here.

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I hadn’t planned to see Hokum on opening day, but here we are. As it turns out, I’m more than glad I attended on the whim that carried me into an afternoon screening in Salt Lake City this International Workers’ Day. And I had only the vaguest of ideas about the storyline I’d be walking into. Better that way. Always better to go in cold, I think. I tend to look at the first few seconds of a trailer and if the premise is promising, I go for it. I’d advise you to do the same. Here’s what it took to get me in the theater: Adam Scott, spooky imagery. That’s all I had to go on.

Let me tell you: Knowing nothing, I found that Adam Scott & Co. delivered. Scott puts his horror chops on display—believable terror, that is—in this folk horror picture that follows his character (whose name I forgot immediately as the guy was only “Adam” to me throughout), Ohm Bauman, to hell and back. Not literally. Well, not exactly literally.

Not to spoil too much, the gist is this: Adam (shit, I did it again) visits a spooky forested bit of Ireland to lay his parents to rest when he stops into a spoooooky hotel they’d stayed in as younger, more alive folks. His character is haunted by the memory of a mother he obviously loved much more than a father for whom he cared significantly less. In the opening scenes of the film, we see him seeing her. Jump scares galore.

In fact, let me get at this: At least four or five times during this film, I covered my eyes. The sound of the film (the guy’s name was “Ohm,” get it?) did a lot of heavy lifting, but this facet of the story’s oomph isn’t the detriment it might be to a less well-rounded film. But there I was, covering my eyes, squinting but not squinting, trying to see without looking, and knowing something was coming. McCarthy’s writing and directing is compelling, and the tension is compulsory: I couldn’t help but to look even when I knew a scary image was coming my way. And I’ve said this before: I do not like being scared. I do not go to horror films looking for thrills. I don’t ski for thrills, don’t drive for thrills, and I damn sure don’t sit in a comfortable chair for 90+ minutes for thrills. But I couldn’t help myself. Damian McCarthy, Adam Scott, and the rest of the cast—and yes, the production crew on the whole—forced me to watch even when I knew I was about to get a shock.

I typically leave films that rely heavily on jumpscares with a sense of deep resentment at having been hoodwinked, and I don’t have good things to say about those films. But in Hokum, the jumpscares are not the main dish on offer but rather are a mere accompaniment. They are accoutrements to the main fare; le plat principal is tension, tension, tension. In fact, the jumpscares are the releases that come about every fifteen minutes at first and about every seven minutes later on in the film—the structure of these intervals feels intentional. I wonder if, while writing the script, McCarthy said to himself: “Jumpscare on pages three, seventeen, thirty, forty, fifty, fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five…” and so on. Maybe the films that rely on jumpscares without the careful construction of story, character, and—of course—tension are missing the key ingredients that make Hokum feel different from the cheaper options out there.

Of note, too, are the effective uses of claustrophobia and memory in the telling of Hokum’s main story.

And Hokum doesn’t feel formulaic. It feels new. Some of the same folk horror vibes as Rabbit Trap (2025, another film that uses sound to great effect) are in focus, here. I was also reminded of Mother of Flies (2025) as a helpful comparison; it’s on Shudder, if you’re looking for more genuinely scary witchy spookiness. If you want more folk horror, claustrophobia, and character-driven stories that also manage to scare the hell out of audiences… Hokum fits the bill.

Should you see it? I say, yes—yes, you should. Don’t read any reviews before seeing it. Just go.