- Adam Scott, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh
- May 1st 2026
- 107
- Damian McCarthy
Adam Scott plays an American writer who books a room at a remote Irish hotel with a haunted honeymoon suite.
Thanks to Parks and Recreation, Step Brothers and many more, Adam Scott is best known for his work in comedy. However, his hit TV show Severance and his new horror Hokum prove that he’s more than a funny man.
In Damian McCarthy’s horror, Scott plays rude, bitter writer Ohm Bauman, who travels to a remote hotel in rural Ireland to spread the ashes of his deceased parents, who had their honeymoon there.
When the hotel’s bartender, Fiona (Florence Ordesh), goes missing after a Halloween party, Ohm becomes determined to solve the mystery.
He believes she’s somehow in the hotel’s honeymoon suite, which has been locked for years as it’s purportedly haunted, and goes to investigate, completely unprepared for what he’ll find up there.
Hokum has great potential, lots of interesting ideas and a solid performance from Scott, but McCarthy unfortunately tries to pack too much into one film, and it feels like it’s trying to do too many things and involve too many characters.
As a result, Hokum feels like a collection of ideas bundled together instead of a cohesive story. Perhaps he should have narrowed his focus to a couple of these ideas and done those really well instead of spreading the narrative so thin.
Blending Irish folklore horror with a mystery and an escape room concept, Hokum tries to make up for its storytelling shortcomings by going big on creepy atmosphere, jump scares, freaky characters and an unsettling sound design.
The production design of the decrepit, abandoned honeymoon suite, where we spend a lot of the film, also adds a lot of value.
Hokum has a handful of effective horror moments, but they don’t amount to much in the grand scheme of the story. There are a lot of intriguing symbols and teases, but they don’t really go anywhere, and you’re left with more questions than answers.
The eerie atmosphere and sense of tension and dread cannot be faulted, but it feels like McCarthy was more concerned with visuals and scares than the story, which is ultimately underwhelming.
In cinemas from Friday 1st May
By Hannah Wales
© Cover Media