All articles tagged with #hokum
Hokum follows depressed author Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) at a haunted Irish inn where a locked honeymoon suite is said to trap a witch; mixing The Shining vibes with Get Out and Twilight Zone’s The Howling Man, the story hinges on mushrooms that may let Ohm glimpse a real supernatural realm even as his own guilt and trauma color what he believes to be true.
Neon’s horror Hokum, headlined by Adam Scott, opened to $6.4 million on 1,885 screens to rank No. 5 at the North American box office, a solid start for its $5 million budget set in a haunted Irish inn. The witch tale marks Neon’s first release under a new deal with Spooky Pictures and Image Nation, while the weekend also features Animal Farm at $3.4 million and Deep Water at $2.15 million. The box office overall is up about 18% versus last year, and Hokum is buoyed by strong early reception (86% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes; Cinemascore B).
Irish director Damian McCarthy’s ‘Oddity’—a slow-burn, atmosphere-driven horror about a blind medium unraveling her sister’s death—streams on Hulu, illustrating McCarthy’s knack for dread over constant jump scares and cementing his rising horror cred after ‘Hokum’.
Adam Scott didn’t set out to be a horror star, but his career has steadily leaned into the genre—from Hellraiser IV to Krampus and Severance. His latest lead in Hokum, directed by Damian McCarthy, is driven more by the character and story than fright, and required him to act largely solo in a claustrophobic hotel set. He praises McCarthy’s process and notes the shared tension-building between horror and comedy as a throughline in his work, with Hokum opening in theaters on May 1.
Adam Scott stars as a troubled American novelist who travels to a haunted Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, only to confront a cursed honeymoon suite, a murky mystery and a director’s diffuse script. While Hokum delivers a claustrophobic mood and striking production design, Damian McCarthy’s script leans into atmosphere over explanation, mixing supernatural hints with a non-supernatural crime plot and leaving some threads unresolved as the film heads toward streaming.