“Hokum” is a word that implies nonsense. Absurdity dressed up as something meaningful, often with the intention of pulling easy emotional reactions out of an audience. It’s a term usually used to dismiss something as hollow or overly sentimental, the kind of storytelling that relies on familiar tricks rather than genuine substance. So it’s hard not to wonder what Damian McCarthy is getting at by titling his latest film Hokum. Is it a wink at the horror genre’s most overused conventions? A self-aware embrace of jump scares, haunted hotels, and folklore? Or is it something less intentional, a film that occasionally falls into the very traps it might be gesturing towards? The answer, frustratingly (and interestingly), is somewhere in between.
Set in a remote corner of Ireland, Hokum follows Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott), a deeply troubled, famous author who travels abroad to spread his parents’ ashes, only to find himself trapped in a possibly haunted hotel. It’s a premise that feels immediately familiar in an almost comforting way. There is something so inherently effective about a haunted hotel, a place where countless lives have passed through, behind traces of themselves that may not have fully “moved on.” It’s a setting built for ghostly horror, and McCarthy understands how to use it as both a narrative engine and a playground. And to the film’s credit, it is genuinely fun.
This is the kind of horror movie that thrives in a packed theater. Seeing it at the Philadelphia Film Society SpringFest only amplified that feeling, as we felt every jump scare, every prolonged moment of tension, and the surprising waves of laughter that rippled through the packed audience. The looseness that Hokum made it easy for audiences to sink into. It’s scary where it wants to be, and surprisingly funny when it doesn’t necessarily have to be.
There were far more laughs than expected, many of them coming from the film’s supporting characters. Particularly, Jerry (David Willmot), who becomes an instant highlight of the entire film. He’s the kind of character you instantly root for and brings a super grounded sense of humor into a film that could have easily taken itself too seriously.
At the center of it all, Scott delivers exactly the kind of performance the film needs. He sinks into the role of a lonely, ultra-traumatized, alcoholic writer with ease. He’s moody, withdrawn, and at times deeply unpleasant, often treating those around him with a level of cruelty that makes him difficult to like. And yet, something is compelling about watching him unravel.
Ever since that insane opening scene of The Monkey (2025), it’s been clear he has the chops for horror, and this fully leans into that. The film smartly frames Ohm’s internal world through the lens of his own writing, opening the story with a scene plucked straight out of one of his books. It positions him not as a hero, but a villain in his own narrative. It ultimately serves as a clever twist on the well-worn “miserable author” trope, connecting everything that happens to him in the hotel to the trauma from his past.
That trauma, particularly the accidental death of his mother, lingers over the film like a ghost. It informs everything, from the way Ohm sees himself to the way the supernatural elements begin to manifest around him. One of the film’s most effective and unsettling recurring images is a strange rabbit-man-like creature pulled from a childhood television show, something that is never fully explained and doesn’t need to be. It’s just there to freak you out, and it works. That’s where Hokum works best, where it trusts the audience to sit in the weird without explanation, which is why its handling of Irish folklore feels like such a missed opportunity.
The film gestures toward Irish folklore as a key piece of its identity but rarely commits to it in a meaningful way. Instead of enriching the world, it often feels like window dressing. There’s a sense that this story could be taking place anywhere, that the setting, while visually present, isn’t meaningfully integrated into the narrative. Small details also begin to chip away at the immersion. A hotel literally labeled “HOTEL” in bold, almost comically obvious lettering above its front doors. A conveniently placed Irish folklore book that feels more like a prop than anything that would actually exist in this world. These may seem like minor choices, but they add up, creating a disconnect between the film’s atmosphere and its world-building.
It’s a strange contradiction — Hokum avoids the modern horror tendency to over-explain its supernatural elements (a huge plus), but in doing so, it also misses the chance to root those elements in something culturally rich and specific. The result is a film that floats somewhere between specificity and universality, never fully committing to either.
Still, though, when it comes to pure horror mechanics, McCarthy knows what he’s doing. The jump scares are effective – really effective. In a genre where they’re too often cheap or predictable, this proves there’s still an art to the jump scare. It leans into a sort of “escape room horror,” moving its character through a series of contained, escalating set pieces as the tension rises. It’s super scary and claustrophobic, but more importantly, it’s fun as hell.
But watching Hokum in the context of SpringFest, it’s hard not to compare it to films like Obsession(2025), which operate on a much more ambitious, formally rich level. It digs deeper and lingers longer while also introducing something completely new to the genre. By comparison, Hokum feels lighter, less interested in reinvention, and more focused on execution.
Though not every horror film needs to redefine the genre, sometimes you need something that just works. Something that delivers on scares, gets the crowd jumping, and reminds you why these tropes exist in the first place. Hokum sits comfortably in that space. It’s hard to call it “average” without sounding dismissive, but that’s honestly where it lands — a solid, enjoyable horror movie. The kind you throw on with friends, the kind you see in a packed theater and have a great time with, regardless of whether it aims to be the next great evolution of horror. In a world of The Substance (2024) and Weapons (2025), maybe we do need some Hokum.
Review Courtesy of Jake Fittipaldi
Feature Image Credit to NEON