I have not seen all of Damian McCarthy’s filmography. My experience with him is still fairly limited, but after being so pleasantly surprised by Oddity, I was excited to see what he would do next. Oddity impressed me not simply because it featured a blind lead character, but because of the way McCarthy created genuine fear and sustained tension without relying on an endless barrage of cheap jump scares. I appreciate horror directors who aren’t dependent on excessive gore or loud stingers, but instead want to build a story, develop memorable characters, and slowly tighten the screws. That approach is once again on full display in Hokum.

This time McCarthy teams up with Severance star Adam Scott, who plays novelist Ohm Bauman, an author traveling to a tiny Irish village to scatter his parents’ ashes. Along the way he finds himself staying at a quaint little inn that feels more like a bed and breakfast than a traditional hotel. While there, he befriends a local bartender named Fiona, played by Florence Ordesh, who introduces him to the town’s strange folklore. According to local legend, a witch was once trapped inside the inn’s honeymoon suite, which has remained permanently sealed ever since. The warning is simple: don’t go inside, because if you do, you’ll die. If you know what the word “hokum” means, you can probably guess that Ohm is more than a little skeptical.

I’ve seen some critics describe Ohm as an unlikable protagonist, and I don’t really agree with that. I don’t think he’s unlikable so much as challenging. He’s not warm, charming, or eager to make friends, but that doesn’t automatically make him someone I don’t want to follow. Adam Scott has always been very good at playing sarcastic, emotionally guarded characters, and that’s exactly what he’s doing here. I’m not convinced this is one of his most demanding performances because it feels very comfortably within his wheelhouse, but he’s still a compelling guide through this increasingly unsettling mystery.

Before long Fiona mysteriously disappears, and one of the local men becomes the prime suspect. Ohm, however, has experienced enough strange sights and sounds to believe something much darker is happening. With help from the townspeople, he begins investigating both Fiona’s disappearance and the truth behind the supposedly haunted honeymoon suite. Once he eventually finds himself trapped inside, McCarthy lets the suspense simmer rather than rushing toward easy payoffs, allowing the mystery to unfold piece by piece.

That’s really where McCarthy continues separating himself from so many modern horror directors. He understands that atmosphere can be far more unsettling than a deafening orchestral blast. Time and again he’ll simply let something drift into the background behind a character. A face. A body. A shape. He trusts the audience to notice it without punctuating every appearance with an explosion of noise. Sometimes these ghosts are terrifying, sometimes they’re trying to communicate something important, and sometimes they’re quietly filling in pieces of the larger mythology. By the end, it’s impressive how elegantly so many of those moments tie together.

The sound design deserves special recognition. Horror movies rarely enter awards conversations for sound unless they’re huge action spectacles, but McCarthy understands how much tension can be built through restraint. Whispers, creaking wood, distant groans, subtle chimes, and long stretches of uneasy silence create an incredible sense of unease throughout the film. It’s patient, disciplined filmmaking that lets the audience do some of the work instead of constantly telling them when to be scared.

There’s also an audio description track, although disappointingly there wasn’t anyone credited for it, so I don’t know who deserves the praise. Whoever was responsible did an excellent job during one particularly difficult sequence where the camera slowly pans behind Adam Scott, revealing something that requires far more detailed description than most horror movies attempt. Because McCarthy so often avoids pairing every ghostly appearance with an explosive sound effect, the audio description is able to time many of the reveals far better than we usually get in horror. That’s a real advantage for blind viewers, since so many jump scares become awkwardly telegraphed when narration has to compete with an intentionally loud soundtrack.

There are a couple of story choices that venture into spoiler territory that didn’t work quite as well for me, which is probably why I don’t love Hokum quite as much as Oddity. That movie caught me completely by surprise, while Hokum arrived carrying the weight of expectations. I also enjoyed the reveal surrounding Ohm’s troubled past and the explanation for why his novels are so relentlessly bleak. The film is cleverly bookended by scenes from what appears to be a movie adaptation of one of his books, and I liked how the ending subtly suggests that his supernatural experience has fundamentally changed him, allowing him to finally tell a different kind of story.

This has been an extraordinary year for horror, led by films like Obsession and Backrooms, and Hokum is another reminder that 2026 isn’t being carried by just one or two standout releases. Much like the year Oddity came out, we’re getting an entire wave of horror films that are pushing the genre in exciting directions. Hokum may sound like nonsense on paper, but it’s really a masterclass in atmosphere, restraint, and the art of making simple ideas profoundly unsettling. Damian McCarthy continues proving himself to be one of the strongest voices working in horror today, and I can’t wait to see what nightmare he dreams up next.

Fresh: 7.8/10