By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Director: Damian McCarthy
Starring: Adam Scott | Austin Amelio | David Wilmot | Mallory Adams | Peter Coonan
Year: 2026
Running time: 107
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35672862
Peter says: “It’s a familiar story: A grieving, cynical novelist retreats to remote lodgings, only to become ensnared in a violent, supernatural spook session. With strong shades of 1408 and THE SHINING – even lifting an overhead car shot in homage to the latter – Damian McCarthy’s HOKUM is a beautifully shot, effectively creepy genre exercise that ultimately doesn’t ‘say’ much on its own.
“Adam Scott plays Ohm Bauman, who travels to Ireland to scatter his parents’ ashes. But he isn’t exactly a nice guy; at one point, he goes so far as to burn a bellhop’s hand with a hot spoon just for asking for an autograph. It was hard to root for him, despite how much I usually enjoy Adam Scott’s screen presence in things like Severance. The film pushes the ‘asshole’ part of the ‘lovable asshole’ trope just a bit too far.
“The real star here is the atmosphere. Much like Zach Cregger’s Airbnb-ruining Barbarian, there are some truly creepy secrets hidden within this quaint Irish motel. While the ‘lore’ is kept to a minimum and the story never quite clicked for me, if you have ‘scaredy-cat’ friends, they’ll be clutching their armrests through most of this.