The new horror film Hokum was released on 1 May 2026, and the critic and audience ratings seem too generous for the poorly executed plot.
Film News Blitz’s Amelie Da Costa is here to tell us why.
Hokum was directed, created and written by Damian McCarthy, an Irish filmmaker, who is known for his work on Oddity, released in 2024 and Caveat, released in 2020.
Though all his movies have been highly rated by critics, Hokum failed to meet those standards for some of the audience throughout most of the film.
Perfect casting choices for characters
The casting choice for the characters was perfect, with all actors accomplishing an impeccable performance throughout the entire one hour and 41 minutes runtime.
The lead in this small cast was Adam Scott, who is known for his roles in Step Brothers, Parks and Recreation, and Severance, and he gave another great performance as Ohm Bauman in Hokum.
Ohm is meant to be a dislikable character at the start, and gain his likeness through the movie, which Scott pulled off very well.
Fiona, played by Florence Ordesh, was also an interesting character, even with limited screentime, and became the catalyst that got the film going halfway through.
Letting down an interesting premise
Hokum follows the story of an American author, Ohm Bauman, who travels to a hotel in Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes, but finds himself mixed up in a missing person case and experiencing the horrors of the forbidden honeymoon suite.
The storyline was unique and sounded interesting, but the way it was executed made the film feel flat and dull.
A slow opening with laboured character introductions robbed Hokum of that immediate eerie feel, and it makes you question where things are going.
Moreover, the slow start had an even more profound effect on the film.
For something billed as a horror, the lack of horror within the first half an hour of Hokum was extremely disappointing.
On a positive note, when the ball eventually starts rolling halfway through the film, the horror aspects are impeccable, with scenes that will send a chill down your spine, that make you want to curl up in a ball and hide.
However, this sensation is short-lived before it gets extremely far-fetched, a pitfall of many other horrors.
This is evident in the film’s far-fetched ending, which felt like it went completely off track and against the grain of the events that preceded it.
The ending also felt rushed and like it was thrown together at the last minute, leaving unanswered questions and confusion.
There was also the mental battle between the main character and his trauma, which was horrifying to some extent, but not touched on enough to allow those watching to understand his journey of overcoming his fears.
All the characters that were meant to be scary just seemed stereotypical and very boring; there was nothing different to them, which let the film down massively from standing out in such a massive genre.
Ratings of the film
Critics and most of the audience seemed to think differently about all this, with the film racking up an impressive, yet undeserving, 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and 83% on the Popcornmeter.
Though the Popcornmeter is high, there have also been mixed opinions of the film online, with many saying that they were disappointed, whilst others say it was a great film.
For something that hit all the marks for critics and seemed to do so well, Hokum was poorly made with plot holes that didn’t make sense, and an almost forgettable storyline.
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