Movie Review: HOKUM

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: May 1st, 2026 / 05:24 PM

Rating: R
Stars: Adam Scott, Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Florence Ordesh, Michael Patric, Will O’Connell, Brendan Conroy, Austin Amelio, Ezra Carlisle, Mallory Adams, Sioux Carroll
Writer: Damian McCarthy
Director: Damian McCarthy
Distributor: Neon
Release Date: May 1, 2026

American novelist Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is at the Bilberry Woods Hotel in Ireland in order to scatter his parents’ ashes in the surrounding forest, per their wishes.

Despite being a famous author worldwide – even the staff at the out-of-the-way Bilberry have read his books – Bauman is bleak, depressed, and cynical. His opinion of local folklore is that it’s “hokum.” Of course, he does not believe for an instant that the hotel’s honeymoon suite has been locked for decades because the hotel’s owner (Brendan Conroy) claims he has trapped a witch inside it.

Bauman’s emotional state is more troubled than we may at first suppose. His stay in Ireland is prolonged due to his mental state.

Then Bauman learns that a friendly Bilberry Hotel staff member has gone missing. Despite his antisocial outlook, he attempts to investigate what’s happened. His efforts are not welcomed by all parties concerned, but he does get a surprising ally in his quest.

Wherever he goes and whomever he encounters, Bauman faces on all sides a strong belief in the supernatural, with mounting evidence that suggests maybe it’s not all “hokum.”

Writer/director Damian McCarthy has a rich sense of the kind of Irish craic, mythology and legends that make the country so renowned for its stories. With the look and camera perspectives, the filmmaker seems to effortlessly deposit us within a tale, at the same time he playfully lays out the possibility that people’s minds are playing tricks (among the forest’s products are psychedelic mushrooms).

We’re invited to come to our own conclusions as far as what’s really happening, albeit the atmosphere suggests the otherworldly, as does the hotel décor.

HOKUM also has specific type of menace intertwined with wry humor and gentle melancholy that all feels intrinsically Irish. There’s real sympathy for most of the characters, even those who are a bit dim.

Scott is expert at modulating Bauman’s exterior and interior states. At first, he comes off as a judgmental, condescending jerk, but the script and the actor collaborate in unveiling what’s going on with the character in surprising ways.

Other standouts in the cast include Peter Coonan, David Wilmot, Michael Patric, Will O’Connell and Fiona Ordesh. Conroy plays the hotel’s owner as the sort of local eccentric who would make most tourists happy (Bauman is an exception), avidly spinning his yarns of the uncanny in the lobby, with creepy figurines illustrating his points.

As with his previous film ODDITY, writer/director McCarthy blends together murder mystery and the unearthly to successfully scare, beguile and immerse us. We come out of HOKUM with the sensation that we’ve not just watched a movie but undergone an experience ourselves.

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An American writer in a haunted Irish hotel

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Article: Movie Review: HOKUM

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