If you’re looking for a moody, mysterious, whodunit, folk horror film (and I know you are), Hokum (2026) has it all, including a cantankerous Adam Scott in arguably his best performance to date. Writer-director Damian Mc Carthy has already earned his rank, possessing an impressive lead up with his debut Caveat (2021), followed by the incrementally weirder Oddity (2024) and is now comfortably on a roll with Hokum, a tale inspired by Gaelic mythology on a heavy dose of psilocybin remindful of the Stephen King-style horror narratives in which a famous author travels to a remote locale only for his life to further unravel. Scott owns the arrogant prick writer protagonist part as Ohm Bauman. He’s a misery, a type we’ve met before, that is if you’ve ever been seated too late at the bar. Everything about him sneers stay away, yet there’s a softness in him for the underdogs, redeeming him slightly. The American travels to a remote and unromantic Irish inn where he and we meet a bevy of odd yet never over the top and mostly true to life personalities. And this is just one of the many aspects of the that film I enjoyed. Where any sane human would run away, Bauman is grounded in what’s real and right above all else and is compelled to search out the truth; and it just makes sense. He breaks the horror genre rules and goes upstairs. The gothic atmospheric terror is palpable, yet Bauman is methodical, accountable and admirable in his mission and insane plunge into the unknown; and the perpetual ebbs and flows of logic and disbelief that come with it are well worth the journey. Mix yourself a shroom smoothie, but don’t look at your reflection, watch this instead.

WATCH OR NOT: WATCH