Checking In, Tuning Out: Why Hokum is the Year’s Most Unsettling Stay

May 1

In Damian McCarthy’s latest feature, the horror isn't just in the walls—it’s in the protagonist’s head. Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a cynical horror novelist who thinks he is too smart to fall for the tropes he writes for a living. He travels to the isolated Bilberry Woods Hotel to scatter his parents' ashes, treating local legends about a locked honeymoon suite as mere tourist bait—or "hokum."

But when his only emotional tether, Fiona (Florence Ordesh), vanishes, the film shifts from a prickly character study into a suffocating pressure chamber. Ohm is forced to confront a hotel that feels alive, intelligent, and specifically designed to dismantle his emotional armor.

The Atmosphere: Architecture as a Weapon

McCarthy avoids the "cheap noise" of modern jumpscare-fests, choosing instead to let the silence do the heavy lifting. The film’s strength lies in its tactile, claustrophobic quality:

Visual Dread: Cinematographer Colm Hogan uses jaundiced lighting and lingering frames to make the shadows feel like they are actively closing in.
Sonic Needles: The sound design by Joseph Bishara turns concierge bells and rumbling dumbwaiters into a score that stays "under your skin".
Deliberate Pace: Editor Brian Philip Davis uses a slow-burn rhythm that gives the audience time to study every dark corner before the screws begin to turn.

The Performance: Adam Scott’s Darkest Hour

Adam Scott sheds his usual energy to play a man who has built an entire personality around not feeling. He starts as a dismissive, alcoholic jerk, but Scott skillfully reveals the cracks of grief and guilt underneath the sarcasm. It is a reactive, internal performance that carries the film through its most dialogue-free, unsettling stretches.

The ACRM Verdict: 4/5 Stars

Hokum works because it understands that true dread isn't about what is in the room—it’s about why you were brought there in the first place. It is a rare horror film that respects the viewer’s intelligence and rewards patience with a masterclass in psychological tension.