Our review of Hokum and an interview with director Damian McCarthy, already known for the horror film Oddity.
Ohm Baum, a grouchy American writer with no inclination for pleasant interactions and stuck in a creative crisis while writing his latest novel, decides to stay at the Bilberry Woods Hotel in Ireland, the place his parents had spent their honeymoon years ago in, with the intention of dropping off there their ashes — and perhaps some unresolved family traumas too.
Baum’s stay at the Bilberry, however, isn’t exactly getting off to a good start: in the lobby, the story of a Cailleach, the local witch known for chaining her victims and leading them alive to the underworld, is casually recounted, while the access to the romantic suite, once used by Baum’s parents, is now strictly off-limits to everyone, as it is said to be haunted by the aforementioned witch, trapped there by the hotel’s elderly owner.
After attempting suicide during his stay at the same hotel, for reasons that will be partially clarified with the events unfolding, and having being saved in extremis by the hotel bartender Fiona, Baum discovers that she has disappeared inside the Bilberry Hotel on Halloween night, shortly after saving his life. Determined to return the favor and find Fiona, Baum decides to look for her in the one place no one has ever investigated: the haunted suite.
Hokum is a unique film – just as Damian McCarthy’s previous features Caveat and Oddity, which have been growing in popularity, enthusiastic receptions, and budget, were. While it’s unlikely to give in to the all-encompassing “McCarthy cinematic universe” theory that would demonstrate the belonging of the characters in each film to the same narrative universe and that insists on connecting the events themselves, it’s inevitable not to notice numerous easter eggs and recurring themes in all three films, in a hunt for detail that has been the subject of debate and research among McCarthy’s fanbase for years: the now-famous creepy rabbit puppet, capable of moving in the presence of the supernatural known in Caveat, for example, makes a cameo in Oddity, among the antique curiosities on sale in the protagonist’s shop, and a very brief appearance also in Hokum for the eagle-eyed watchers. The cursed ring bell seen in Oddity, capable of summoning a ghost when pushed, also appears in Hokum, albeit with a lower profile, placed right in the lobby of the Bilberry Woods Hotel, where in one certain scene the deceased couple from Caveat also make an almost unrecognisable and completely surprising appearance.
In each of McCarthy’s films, the plot revolves around a main character who happens to be isolated or trapped within a mysterious place where the paranormal interferes ambiguously, sometimes as an antagonist, sometimes as a tool of insight and assistance, to help solving a crime or a disappearance case alongside the protagonist, who is involved with a varying degre of awareness in the search for the truth.
But McCarthy’s film doesn’t just observe itself, ideally turning its gaze to films like Stanley Kubrik’s The Shining and Mikael Håfström’s 1408, inevitably quoted, given the setting in a haunted hotel, with some affectionate references graciously embroidered.
Hokum is a peculiar folk horror with a strong psychological component, a mystery undertone and some sparks of lugubrious irony (the latter entrusted mostly to the secondary characters, such as the frustrated hotel porter with novelist ambitions Alby and the local weirdo Jerry, magic mushrooms expert): the tone is gloomy and mysterious but not excessively dark, the tension unravels with ease throughout the course of the film with occasional well-placed jumpscares and numerous distressing sequences, to which McCarthy had already accustomed his audience. But here the themes manage to intertwine with the narrative with greater harmony, revealing the charm of the plot within the plot, of the novelist who projects himself within his own work and who ends up becoming a pawn of the story itself, moving within a path of character development that sees the grumpy Ohm transform himself and radically change his ideas, attitude and approach: from the initial cynicism that leads him to smugly dismiss the legends of local folklore as “hokum” to the acquisition of a certain hallucinatory clarity linked to the paranormal phenomena he will witness; from a difficult and unpleasant attitude to a sincere repentance and the related desire for redemption; from depressing and aimless solitude to the search for hope.
Rightfully placing itself among the most anticipated horror films of 2026, Hokum proves to be a somewhat more subdued work than Oddity, but also more self-aware, nuanced, and mature.
Interview with Director Damian McCarthy and Adam Scott
On the occasion of a brief online Q&A session, we interviewed Damian McCarthy and talked about his new film.
NAQB: What sparked the initial idea for Hokum? Whas it an item, or some place…?
– Damian McCarthy: «With this one, it was very much a character, the idea of sticking with this one very interesting character and just seeing how much we could punish him over one night, you know, to put him in out – as what starts out as a very unlikable guy and to put him into this very frightening situation which is a haunted hotel – it’s a subgenre of horror that I thought would be very interesting to explore with this character. So those two things were pretty much at the very beginning of the idea».
NAQB: Where is that creepy dude (Jack the Jackass) coming from? Can you tell us more a little bit more about him?
– Damian McCarthy: «I think it was just the idea of trying to take something that should be kind of innocent and fun for children which would be this that this kids’ TV show from, you can imagine, maybe the 1950s, it’s been running on a TV for years and years – and just trying to find a way to warp that and make it very creepy and unsettling and I just thought it’d be very almost out of place, this surprising image that would come into the film. You know, horror films they’re so visual: it is all about that that imagery and trying to get to come up with these things that will stick with the viewer when the film’s finished. But also one of the challenges with script writing is that you’re trying to find a way to deliver exposition in a way that feels natural and kind of makes sense. Because Adam Scott’s character is on his own for such long streches of the movie and we need to learn a little bit more about him, and I didn’t want to do something like voice over or any of this kind of things, it felt like this would be a nice way to to bring back in those images that I really wanted to use and have him deliver this creepy monologue which is quite punishing when he does it; so those are kind of a few ideas that that led to it».
We really couldn’t hold back some curiosity towards the great leading role of Ohm Baum, played by Adam Scott, so we asked him a question as well:
NAQBW: Was there a scene that gave you the chills, that spooked you – whether when you’ve read it in the script before filming or that you saw afterwards, after the editing?
– Adam Scott: «Yeah, the first scene I saw after it was cut together: I was doing some ADR with Damian, (explaining) when you re-record the dialogue while you’re watching a scene upon a big screen in front of you. Damian wanted just some breathing sounds from me as I walk across a room. So I was watching that scene with the headphones and the microphone in front of me and then this really scary thing happens and I jumped and yelled out loud and Damian was like “Okay… I mean that’s an interesting choice, but all I need is breathing sounds” and so for me, I had this involuntary reaction to it where it actually scared me and I remember shooting that I can look and see it’s me and it’s not real but that’s how effective Damian’s movie was going to be, it was a really telling peek into how much I would love this movie».
Damian McCarthy’s Hokum will hit Italian theaters on August 5, 2026.
