Panic Fest: Hokum is Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy’s latest ‘must watch’ nightmare

Courtesy Panic Fest/NEON

Panic Fest 2026 just wrapped up at Screenland Armour in KC. The yearly homegrown genre festival is a delightful cavalcade of feature films hitting theaters soon, and some with releases further down the road. Read all of our coverage of these debuts.

One of the joys of film criticism (and loving movies in general) is observing how an artist develops over time. It’s thrilling when a filmmaker arrives already displaying a strong voice and command of every element from scripting to pacing to visual panache—your Zach Creggers and Jordan Peeles. But it’s just as rewarding to watch someone grow from project to project. When an artist starts strong, there’s intense pressure to keep delivering bangers. When they start small and work up, their work becomes a journey that invites more people to champion it with each successive entry.

This is what’s made Irish horror filmmaker Damian McCarthy’s career so fun to watch over the last several years. His first feature, Caveat, announced a promising talent that had first developed over a series of short films. Oddity, McCarthy’s 2024 follow-up, was a masterful exploration of tone and tension—easily among the most genuinely frightening viewing experiences of the decade thus far.

Hokum is McCarthy’s biggest movie yet, with a major star (Adam Scott) and distributor (Neon) providing the widest theatrical release of his career. This time out, McCarthy’s interest is in developing character. He gives us personalities with strong layers and interiority, while maintaining the pitch-black humor and cursed curiosity shop aesthetics that have defined his movies to this point. There’s still room for growth, but the writer-director’s latest proves his journey remains on an upward trajectory.

Scott plays Ohm Bauman, an author struggling to find a fitting conclusion to his bestselling novel trilogy. Seeking inspiration and closure, Ohm books a stay at a hotel in rural Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes—the same place where his folks once spent a treasured weekend. Arriving already depressed and grumpy, and haunted by the childhood trauma that killed his mother, Ohm is determined to have a Bad Time.

In addition to Ohm’s personal ghosts, the hotel is actually haunted by an ancient witch who transfixes her victims before dragging them to the underworld. When friendly hotel staff member Fiona (Florence Ordesh) disappears, Ohm joins Fiona’s friend Jerry (David Wilmot)—a hermit who lives in the woods off homemade moonshine and magic mushrooms—to break into the hotel’s closed-off honeymoon suite and investigate.

The resulting rip-roaring supernatural adventure combines elements of McCarthy’s previous work with that of Stephen King and vibe-y contemporary horror like Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo.

Between Ohm’s intense backstory, the one he uncovers at the hotel and the witch haunting the place, there’s too much plot happening. The most immediate thread—what happened to Fiona—gets buried, while Ohm’s personal trauma—thematically rich but less necessary to the actual story—becomes increasingly distracting. If anything, that imbalance more than the film’s setting or lead character may be its biggest genetic link to King.

Fortunately, while some elements are underdeveloped (or maybe more accurately overdeveloped), Hokum as a whole is extremely fun, thanks to a strong dynamic between the characters (something McCarthy’s chillier past films didn’t do as much with) and the cheeky streak of humor influencing not just the dialogue but the production design.

McCarthy’s always had a love for visual detail, and here it pays off like a slot machine. The stagnant tub in the bathroom looks like it could be hiding a body, but becomes the subject of a Sam Raimiesque gag later. A creepy mantlepiece clock features a hammer-wielding cherub giving side-eye that’s discomforting until that little shit becomes its own punchline at a crucial moment.

While Hokum may not be McCarthy’s strongest entry to date (that honor belongs to Oddity), it’s still a spooky good time that sees the filmmaker playing in the sandbox to effective results. One film at a time, McCarthy is honing his skills and gaining practice with new elements of filmmaking and storytelling. We should all be very excited—and very scared—for what happens when he finally masters all of them in a single movie.