We walked out of Hokum with that feeling you get when a horror movie just hits right. Damian McCarthy’s third feature, starring Adam Scott as a deeply broken horror writer named Ohm Bauman, is atmospheric, layered, and genuinely scary in ways that stick with you long after the credits roll. We caught it the night before its official May 1 release, and the theater was packed.
That kind of energy says something.
The film follows Ohm, a successful but miserable author, as he travels from the States to a remote Irish inn called the Bilberry Woods Hotel. He’s there to scatter his parents’ ashes at the place where they honeymooned, basically the only time he can remember them being happy.
What starts as a somber personal trip quickly spirals into something much darker when he learns the hotel’s honeymoon suite is allegedly haunted by a witch. Ohm, being the pragmatic skeptic he is, writes it off as nonsense. The title itself, Hokum, is a nod to that dismissiveness. It means nonsense, something not to be believed. And that’s exactly how Ohm treats the whole idea, right up until he can’t anymore.
The Man Behind the Camera
We spent a good chunk of time digging into Damian McCarthy’s background, and honestly, his story is as interesting as the movies he makes. McCarthy was a working electrician in West Cork while making micro-budget short films on the weekends. That detail alone tells you something about his work ethic. The name of the main character, Ohm Bauman, is actually an inside joke tied to McCarthy’s electrical career; an ohm is a unit of electrical resistance, and it doubles as a reference to both McCarthy’s resistance to returning to that old career and Ohm’s resistance to everything happening around him in the film.
Before Hokum, McCarthy wrote and directed Caveat in 2020 and Oddity in 2024. Caveat was more of a sleeper hit, the kind of film that quietly put him on the map. Oddity blew the doors open. And Hokum feels like the full realization of everything he’s been building toward. Early on, festival submissions rejected his work, so he uploaded a four-and-a-half-minute black-and-white short called He Dies at the End to YouTube. It went viral and launched his career. He also edited Oddity himself on weekends over eighteen months, and an early draft of Hokum was sitting in a drawer while he was cutting that film. The guy just does not stop working.
As for Adam Scott’s casting, that’s a fun story too. Scott watched Oddity, got completely obsessed with McCarthy’s style, and basically cast himself into the movie by cold-calling and emailing the director. McCarthy was initially a bit surprised, but once he saw Scott in Severance, it clicked.
Ohm Bauman: A Character You Hate, Then Understand
We have to talk about Ohm as a character because he is, to put it bluntly, a massive asshole for the first twenty minutes of this film. We are talking off-putting levels of rude. Arthur put it best:
I was watching that, and I’m like, he better die in a gruesome death as a character because if not, there’s no way.
Meaghan had a similar reaction:
There would have been nothing to sympathize with had I not been given the additional context that I needed for this.
And that’s the trick McCarthy pulls off so well. He does not dump Ohm’s backstory on you all at once. You get pieces, scattered throughout the film, that gradually explain why this man is the way he is.
He’s dealing with depression, struggling with the weight of finishing a trilogy, and carrying the trauma of a painful childhood. He attempts to take his own life at the inn, and it’s the bartender, Fiona (Florence Ordesh), who saves him after sensing something was wrong. When Ohm recovers and returns to the hotel weeks later, he discovers Fiona is missing. That mystery becomes the engine of the film’s second half.
What we really appreciated is that Ohm does not magically become a nice guy by the end. He grows, he shows resourcefulness and courage, but he’s still a bit of a dick. Arthur pointed out that the character “doesn’t fully change,” which makes him feel real.
He still has that little asshole behavior in a little bit.
Meaghan agreed:
You kept enough of the shades of the character, like the man himself, that you weren’t like, okay, well, you’re acting like a completely different person now.
It’s honest character writing. People do not flip overnight, even after life-altering experiences. McCarthy understands that.
The People Are the Real Horror
We kept coming back to this idea throughout the episode, and it’s probably the most important thing about Hokum. Yes, there is a witch. Yes, she lives in the sub-basement and chains people and drags them into something resembling hell. That folklore element is real within the story, and it provides some genuinely terrifying sequences. But the witch is not the villain of this film.
Arthur nailed it when she described the supernatural elements as a kind of wrapping around the real story, which is about the darkness inside the people at this hotel. He used a great analogy: the witch storyline is the envelope, and the actual letter inside is the human horror. The mystery of what happened to Fiona, who was responsible, and why the men around the hotel seem so eager to stop looking for her; that’s where the real dread lives
McCarthy did something similar in Oddity, where the husband character slowly reveals himself to be far worse than the supernatural threat. In Hokum, the character of Mal (Peter Coonan) pulls a similar turn, going from the friendly innkeeper to something much more sinister. Meaghan put it directly:
He does like to point out that men are terrible a lot, which, you know, I can appreciate.
Arthur’s response? “Wow. Okay. Just gonna go fuck myself, I guess.” The banter was good on this one.
Setting, Sound, and the Power of No Overhead Lighting
We opened the episode joking about how Hokum uses one of horror’s most effective weapons: a complete lack of overhead lighting. It sounds funny, but it’s true. McCarthy’s films are set in remote, isolated homes, and this one continues that pattern with the Bilberry Woods Hotel, a beautiful property deep in the Irish countryside. It’s not a run-down nightmare house. It’s a real, functional, somewhat charming inn, and that makes the creepiness land harder.
Meaghan pointed out that McCarthy creates isolation even in places that have people in them, which is a specific skill. The hotel has staff, it has guests, but it still feels like the edge of the world. When Ohm gets locked into the honeymoon suite with nothing but an old lantern, you feel trapped with him. Arthur emphasized how much the limited light source puts you in Ohm’s shoes:
You can’t see anything else. You’re there with him and you’re basically experiencing it as much as he does.
There’s also the fun detail referenced before, that McCarthy, being a former electrician, might just be very good at lighting a scene. We joked about it, but honestly, it makes sense. Between the natural lighting, the heavy lamp shades, and the oppressive darkness of the corridors, the visual language of this film is something special. Arthur also drew a comparison to the video game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, where you navigate terrifying environments with only a small lantern. Whether or not that’s a direct inspiration (apparently McCarthy has never played it), the energy is similar.
We also have to shout out the dumbwaiter. It plays a significant role in the film’s scariest sequences, and it’s an inspired piece of set design. Arthur did, however, spend a noticeable amount of time trying to figure out how the mechanics of it worked. “There was no rope at the top. We saw the thing.” Meaghan’s response: “You’ve given this a lot of thought. I don’t know. I don’t have an answer.” Some mysteries are meant to remain unsolved.
A Cast That Earns Every Moment
We cannot wrap this up without talking about the performances. Adam Scott delivers what we think is his best film work to date. He sells Ohm’s grief, his irritability, his fear, and his stubborn intelligence all at once. But the supporting cast is just as strong. David Wilmot as Jerry, the kind oddball living in a van in the woods, is an absolute treasure. “He’s so nice,” Arthur said, and we agree. Jerry brings warmth to a film that could easily have drowned in bleakness
Michael Patric as Fergal, the standoffish groundskeeper, gives you just enough to make you suspicious without tipping his hand too early. Will O’Connell as Albie, the bellhop with a sweet naivete, is quietly one of the most interesting characters in the film. And Florence Ordesh as Fiona makes a strong impression in limited screen time, playing a woman whose intuition and decency make her fate all the more heartbreaking.
McCarthy also continues his tradition of planting objects from previous films into new ones. Caveat’s creepy mechanical bunny appeared in Oddity, and Oddity’s bell shows up in Hokum. Meaghan even floated the theory that Albie could be connected to the ghostly bellhop at the end of Oddity, though they confirmed it’s not the same actor. Whether it’s a shared universe or just McCarthy having fun with callbacks, it adds a layer for fans paying attention.
Final Scores and What’s Ahead
Arthur gave Hokum an 8.5 out of 10. Meaghan landed at an 8. Both agreed it’s one of the best films they’ve seen this year and a strong continuation of McCarthy’s upward trajectory. We think this is a movie you need to see in a theater if you can. The atmosphere, the sound design, the scares; they all hit differently on a big screen.
May 2026 is shaping up to be a massive month for horror, with Obsession, Saccharine, Corporate Retreat, Passenger, Backrooms, and Pitfall all on the way. Hokum is one hell of a way to kick it off.
We also have two interviews dropping this month: one with horror author Annie Neugebauer and another with Ry Barrett, the actor behind Johnny in In a Violent Nature, who will be reprising the role in the sequel later this year.