Hokum: Adam Scott Checks Into a Nightmare

A farewell turns into a nightmare

A locked door is supposed to keep danger out. In Hokum, leaving it shut may be the cruelest choice. Hokum is a supernatural horror film from Damian McCarthy, the director of Caveat and Oddity. Adam Scott plays a bitter American novelist who visits an Irish hotel to scatter his parents' ashes. A forbidden room and a local witch legend turn that farewell into something much uglier. It opened in US theaters on May 1, 2026, and arrives on Hulu in the US on October 10. Scott is the film's smartest weapon. Ohm Bauman is rude, dismissive, and spectacularly bad company. Put him in a cozy travel commercial and he would ruin the entire booking. But Scott gives that hostility a bruised edge. You don't have to like this man to understand why he keeps everyone at a distance. His sarcasm also brings dry humor without turning the scares into punchlines. McCarthy builds the hotel around uncertainty.

Rooms full of unfinished stories

A corridor stretches beyond what you can comfortably see. A doorway gives the frame an empty patch your eyes keep checking. Ordinary objects acquire the unpleasant feeling that somebody has left them there for a reason. The production design and Colm Hogan's photography make the building feel inhabited by stories nobody wants to finish telling.

Unease between the shocks

Sound does just as much work. The film makes you listen for a threat before offering a clear look at it, then uses those expectations against you. There are forceful shocks, but the sustained unease gives them weight. This isn't a haunted-house attraction firing a new scare every 30 seconds. It wants you nervous between the impacts, too.

A missing person gives the mystery an anchor

The missing-person mystery provides a useful anchor. The supernatural material can remain strange because Ohm still has something concrete to investigate. That combination keeps the film moving beyond a simple tour of creepy rooms. It also changes his relationship to the place: curiosity and self-absorption have to make room for somebody else's predicament.

Certainty offers no protection

That's where Hokum becomes more interesting than its familiar setup. The hotel holds collective fears, while Ohm arrives carrying private ones. He dismisses other people's stories almost as aggressively as he avoids his own. Entering this world means accepting that his certainty isn't protection. The horror turns emotional withdrawal into a physical trap, without making every apparition an explanation of trauma. Still, the opening takes time to find its rhythm.

Familiar framework, effective horror

The folklore, personal history, and mystery don't always fit together equally cleanly. Some odd details promise more than the film develops, and the damaged-man-in-a-haunted-building framework is hardly fresh. Viewers expecting a fully explained supernatural rulebook will leave with unanswered questions. But McCarthy's control of space and Scott's uncomfortable vulnerability carry it. Hokum is strongest when it lets a human problem and an impossible threat occupy the same room. Patient horror fans get a sinister atmosphere, real jolts, and a central character who has more to lose than his life. I give it 8 out of 10.