A novelist retreats to an isolated inn, scattering ashes, haunted by a witch in the honeymoon suite. On paper, it sounds like a trope. A horror premise scraped from the bottom of the genre barrel. But under the command of Damian McCarthy, the filmmaker who carved out Caveat and Oddity, "Hokum" isn't playing by the old rules. This isn't a quaint ghost story; it's a psychological ambush, a calculated strike on the haunted house subgenre.
MCCARTHY'S ARTILLERY: A DIRECTOR'S PROFILE
Damian McCarthy isn't just a director; he's a surgeon of dread. The Irish filmmaker, born in 1981, has already established a signature. His previous works, Caveat (2021) and Oddity (2024), aren't jump-scare factories. They are slow burns, psychological incursions that leave scars. Caveat delivered a claustrophobic nightmare in a remote, decaying house, featuring a terrifying, drum-playing bunny suit. Oddity cemented his reputation for crafting unsettling atmospheres and bizarre, memorable visuals. He wrote both, controlling the narrative from blueprint to final cut. When McCarthy helms a project, it’s not just direction; it’s an invasion of the subconscious. Hokum, at 107 minutes, promises a deliberate, unhurried descent into madness, precisely McCarthy's modus operandi.
THE BAUMAN ASSIGNMENT: PLOTTING THE INFILTRATION
The mission: novelist Ohm Bauman, played by Adam Scott, retreats to a remote inn. His objective: scatter his parents' ashes. His reality: immediately consumed by tales of a witch haunting the honeymoon suite. This isn't a peaceful retreat; it’s a trap. Disturbing visions erupt. A shocking disappearance shatters the fragile peace. Ohm is forced to confront dark corners of his past. The tagline, "We've been expecting you," isn't a greeting; it’s a threat, a chilling promise of inevitability. McCarthy, the writer and director, has already laid the groundwork for a mystery that unravels Ohm's sanity piece by piece, building on the supernatural dread with a sharp psychological edge. This isn't about ghosts; it's about what ghosts excavate from the living.
THE SQUAD DEPLOYMENT: CASTING THE OPERATION
Adam Scott, known for his range in films like The Monkey (2025) and The Aviator (2004)—and even Madame Web (2024)—takes on the lead as Ohm Bauman. Scott has a knack for portraying characters teetering on the edge of sanity or caught in absurd circumstances. Here, he's the focal point, the human anchor against an unseen terror. His performance will be the fuse. Peter Coonan joins the ranks as Mal, an actor whose credits include the unsettling We Have Always Lived in the Castle (2019) and A Thousand Times Good Night (2013). Coonan brings a gritty intensity that could ground the supernatural chaos. The supporting cast includes David Wilmot as Jerry, Will O'Connell as Alby, Michael Patric as Fergal, and Florence Ordesh as Fiona. McCarthy's strength isn't just in his direction but in extracting raw, unsettling performances—expect nothing less from this ensemble.
THE BATTLEGROUND: GENRE WARFARE AND SUBVERSION
Hokum arrives under the banner of Horror and Mystery. It immediately draws comparisons to films that weaponized isolation and psychological erosion. Ring (1998) twisted a simple video into a death sentence. The Blair Witch Project (1999) perfected the art of unseen terror in the wilderness. The Endless (2017) blurred the lines between cult reality and cosmic horror. These are not simple haunted house films; they are psychological sieges. Hokum isn't just a haunted inn story; it's a McCarthy film. He's not interested in rehashing old scares. He's interested in dissecting them, in finding the raw nerve. He'll take the familiar "novelist in a haunted place" trope and twist it into something unrecognizable, much like he did with the "babysitter in a remote house" setup in Caveat. The array of production companies—Spooky Pictures, Image Nation Abu Dhabi, Cweature Features, Team Thrives, Tailored Films, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland—signals a significant investment, a united front to deliver a horror experience that aims higher than typical genre fare.
THE VERDICT: A RELIC OR A RESURRECTION?
Damian McCarthy doesn't make safe cinema. He builds unsettling worlds, then traps his characters—and audience—inside them. Hokum promises a familiar setup: a haunted inn, a grieving protagonist. But with McCarthy at the helm, writing and directing, it's a calculated gamble. This isn't just about a witch in a honeymoon suite; it's about the psychological unraveling of a man confronting his past in a place that has been expecting him. Will Hokum deliver a fresh, brutal blow to the haunted house genre, or will it succumb to the very clichés it appears to invoke? McCarthy's track record dictates the former. He doesn't just make horror films; he performs a surgical strike on the audience's psyche. Get ready for the incision.