I went into Hokum with pretty high expectations, mostly because Damian McCarthy has already proven he knows how to make horror that actually feels creepy instead of just loud, and honestly? Hokum did not disappoint me. It’s not flawless, and I can absolutely see why some people might find it too slow or too reliant on atmosphere over action, but for me, this was one of the strongest horror films of 2026 so far.
What I liked most about Hokum is that it feels like a proper horror film. Not in the “look how edgy and disturbing we are” way, and not in the cheap jump-scare-factory way either, even though yes, it definitely uses jump scares. What I mean is that it understands how to build dread. It knows how to make a hallway feel threatening, how to make a locked room feel like the worst place on earth, and how to turn an already broken man into the perfect target for something old, ugly, and supernatural.
The setup is simple, but the atmosphere does the heavy lifting
The story follows Ohm Bauman, a horror novelist who travels to a remote hotel in rural Ireland to scatter his parents’ ashes. He’s grieving, he’s angry, he’s emotionally wrecked, and he’s also kind of an asshole, which I actually appreciated because the film doesn’t try to make him instantly lovable. The hotel itself is the kind of place that already feels wrong the moment you walk into it, old, isolated, strange, full of stories, and carrying that classic horror energy where you know something bad has happened there long before the film starts.
Once Ohm hears about the sealed honeymoon suite and the legend of the witch supposedly haunting it, you can probably guess where things are going. But what I liked about Hokum is that even when the setup sounds familiar on paper, haunted hotel, local folklore, grieving protagonist, supernatural mystery, the execution is strong enough that it never felt lazy to me. It felt like a film made by someone who actually understands why these horror ingredients work and knows how to use them without turning the whole thing into a generic haunted-house story.
Adam Scott is a huge reason the film works
I honestly wasn’t expecting Adam Scott to fit this kind of role as well as he does, but he’s genuinely excellent here. Ohm is not a warm protagonist. He’s bitter, rude, emotionally shut down, and at times honestly pretty exhausting to be around. But that’s exactly why he works. He doesn’t feel like the usual “relatable horror lead.” He feels like a man who’s already half-lost before the haunting even really starts. The supernatural horror doesn’t destroy a stable person, it preys on someone who is already carrying guilt, grief, and unresolved damage.
That’s what makes Ohm interesting to me. He’s not written to be charming. He’s written to be unpleasant, stubborn, and emotionally corroded, and Adam Scott fully commits to that. There’s something very believable about the way he plays him, like this is a man who’s spent years turning pain into sarcasm and hostility because he doesn’t know what else to do with it. It makes the whole film darker, because when weird things start happening, you never get the sense that Ohm is emotionally equipped to deal with any of it.
The hotel is basically the best character in the movie
As much as I liked the performances, the real star of Hokum for me is the setting. This movie absolutely knows how to weaponize space. The hotel feels damp, decayed, isolated, and full of bad history. Every corridor looks like it’s hiding something. Every room feels like it has already seen too much. There’s a boarded-up honeymoon suite that immediately becomes the center of the film’s dread, and McCarthy milks that location for everything it’s worth.
This is one of those films where horror doesn’t come from nonstop action — it comes from anticipation. A closed door becomes terrifying. A hallway becomes terrifying. A person standing still in the wrong corner of a room becomes terrifying. Hokum is very good at making you stare into darkness waiting for something awful to move. And even when it does use jump scares, they mostly work because the atmosphere around them is already doing the heavy lifting.
That’s the difference between a cheap scare and an effective one. A cheap scare is just noise. In Hokum, the scares work because the film has already made you feel unsafe.
It mixes folk horror, ghost story, and mystery surprisingly well
One of the things I liked most is that Hokum isn’t just a haunted-hotel movie. It also has this folk horror / supernatural mystery element running through it, and that gives the story more personality. There’s local folklore, weird side characters, a missing employee, old secrets, and this sense that the hotel isn’t just haunted in a generic way, it’s tied to something older and nastier than one random ghost story.
The film also has a darkly funny streak running through it, which I wasn’t expecting but actually liked. Not enough to turn it into horror-comedy, but just enough to stop it from becoming self-serious misery for two straight hours. There are moments where the film knows exactly how absurd and unpleasant its world is, and that weird edge of humor actually makes the horror feel more human instead of less.
What really worked for me
For me, Hokum works because it understands that grief horror only works if the grief actually matters. The supernatural side of the story is creepy, but what gives the film weight is the fact that Ohm is already haunted before anything supernatural starts happening. The hotel, the witch story, the missing woman, the locked room, all of that is scary, but it hits harder because it’s colliding with someone who is already emotionally rotting from the inside.
That’s where I think the film is smarter than it first appears. It’s not just “sad guy checks into haunted hotel and bad things happen.” It’s about guilt, denial, self-destruction, and the way unresolved grief can turn a place into a trap. The horror doesn’t just happen to Ohm. It latches onto what’s already broken in him.
What didn’t fully work for me
Now, that doesn’t mean I think the film is perfect, because I don’t.
My biggest issue with Hokum is that while I loved the atmosphere and the mystery, I do think the film is stronger moment to moment than it is as a complete story. There were parts where I felt like the movie was juggling a lot of threads, the haunting, the witch mythology, the missing employee, Ohm’s grief, the local weirdness, the hotel’s secrets, and not every single one lands with the same strength. I was engaged the whole time, but I can understand why some people might come away feeling like the film is a little too busy for its own good.
There’s also no point pretending this is a fast-paced horror movie, because it isn’t. Hokum is very much a slow-burn. It takes its time, and if you don’t enjoy atmosphere, dread, and mystery, you’ll probably start feeling the runtime. Personally, I was into it, but I can absolutely see someone else watching it and thinking, “Okay, I get it, move on.”
And while I liked most of the jump scares, I do think a few of them were a little too obvious. They’re effective, but there were moments where I could feel the film setting them up a bit too clearly. That didn’t ruin anything for me, but it did stop the film from feeling truly unpredictable at times.
My thoughts on the ending
I actually liked the ending more than I expected to. It’s not one of those endings that completely flips the film on its head or changes everything you thought you knew, but it does stay true to the tone of the story. It doesn’t suddenly become sentimental or try to hand out easy emotional closure. It keeps the same nasty, haunted energy right to the end, and I respected that.
What I liked most is that the ending doesn’t make the mistake of turning everything into a neat explanation. The film gives you enough to understand what’s happening emotionally and thematically, but it still leaves enough shadow around the edges for the horror to keep breathing after it’s over. That works for me. Horror usually gets weaker when it overexplains itself, and Hokum is smarter than that.
What kind of horror this actually is
I’d call Hokum a mix of:
- Supernatural horror
- Folk horror
- Psychological horror
- Haunted hotel / haunted house horror
- Slow-burn atmospheric horror
So if you’re expecting:
- nonstop gore,
- slasher energy,
- constant monster attacks,
- or fast mainstream horror pacing,
this probably isn’t that movie.
But if you like horror that leans into:
- creeping dread
- haunted locations
- grief and trauma
- eerie folklore
- atmosphere over chaos
then Hokum is absolutely worth your time.
My final opinion
Overall, I thought Hokum was one of the most effective horror films of the year so far. It’s creepy, beautifully controlled, and full of the kind of atmosphere that gets under your skin instead of just trying to make you jump every five minutes. Adam Scott is great, the setting is fantastic, and Damian McCarthy once again proves that he knows how to make horror feel genuinely unpleasant in the best way.
No, I don’t think it’s perfect. It’s a little uneven in places, it asks for patience, and not every story thread is equally strong. But I’d still take a film like Hokum over generic studio horror any day, because even when it stumbles, it still feels like it was made by someone with an actual voice and a real understanding of atmosphere.
My rating: 8/10
Creepy, atmospheric, and genuinely unnerving. A slow-burn supernatural horror with strong performances, a great setting, and just enough weirdness to keep it memorable.
If you have a different opinion, feel free to leave a comment — I’d love to hear your take.
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