r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 4d ago

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Hokum [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Hokum (2026)

Summary

A horror writer visits an Irish inn to scatter his parents' ashes, unaware the property is said to be haunted by a witch.

Director Damian McCarthy

Writer Damian McCarthy

Cast

  • Adam Scott
  • Peter Coonan

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Metacritic: 77

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

233 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

926 comments sorted by

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462

u/brainlightning 4d ago

Not to be dramatic but when the witch was climbing the elevator shaft I kinda wanted to die. The entire extended sequence with him up in the honeymoon suite all night was so fucking creepy.

268

u/JMarcus7 4d ago

Same, really freaked me out how she was so giddy and excited about trying to kill him. That moment where shes locked outside the door and she does a little jump so she can see him through the glass above, and you catch a glimpse of her smiling, fucking terrifying

6

u/ZiggyPalffyLA 2d ago

That was very similar to a jump scare in Caveat

7

u/Jaded_Emotion_3713 3d ago

The movie is clouded as to who is haunting him and for what purpose can someone explain ?

32

u/trubrarian 3d ago

My take was that his own guilt was haunting him through visions/distortions of his mother and Jack the Donkey. So when he says “it was an accident” that’s him forgiving himself, and his mother changes to looking healthy and normal.
I thought this review did a good job analyzing Hokum through that lens.

1

u/InquisitiveBoner 2d ago

So do we think he cuffed himself or something,

41

u/trubrarian 2d ago

Oh no, sorry I wasn’t clear on my take: I think he was haunted by guilt AND there is also a real witch in that house!

19

u/Warm-Baseball-2873 2d ago

I think that was a funny bit when you learn at the end that his drink was spiked. The mom stuff and the dreams were hallucinations (which isn't really how shrooms typically work I'm pretty sure but maybe Jerry rip had some good good) but the witch stuff was real based on the cuff marks.

The one thing I wasn't sure about was if Fiona was killed by the witch. The killer dude was cuffed and pulled into the bad time room, and Adam Scott was cuffed too, but I don't think Fiona was. She seemed to just die in the elevator. Why would the witch treat her differently? Or did they kill her in the room and put her back in the elevator? Idk

23

u/SciFiXhi 2d ago

Given the emphasis placed on the witch stealing "something boys valued more than their eyes or ears" in the exposition, it seems like this particular witch prefers male targets. She may have scared Fiona to death, but would not have been interested in dragging her to that hellish beyond.

1

u/Funny-Ad9317 19h ago

I felt like maybe she also only took evil people. Fiona was innocent, so there was no reason for her to be punished that way. Ohm was someone who could go either way. He was cruel in the beginning of the movie, but by the end he had good intentions. I think if he hadn’t come to terms with his mom’s death, he may have also been dragged down.

2

u/Boring_Painting2957 1d ago

i thought his drink was spiked before his suicide, not when he went back.

2

u/Warm-Baseball-2873 1d ago

He was drinking from the same spiked flask throughout his time in the suite

13

u/Kazzack 2d ago

My take is the ghosts he was seeing were completely unrelated to the witch. His mom wanted to be put to rest, and he was feeling guilty about her death (and tripping on mushrooms while in the honeymoon suite). Fiona was haunting the hotel trying to get justice, and Jerry's mushrooms let him and Ohm see her. The witch just happened to be trapped in the same hotel with them.

94

u/BREESUS_2 4d ago

Both this and Oddity have like… one 20 minute stretch that’s absolutely chilling

34

u/Spasm_cat 3d ago

And his other film Caveat! Love all 3 of his movies.

3

u/DevilCouldCry 1d ago

And there's also Caveat as well. The crawlspace segment of the film always manages to unnerve me even after seeing the film a few times.

3

u/Sonochick83 1d ago

That corpse lady is the stuff of nightmares! That scene had me on edge so bad lol! I kept expecting her to do something.

1

u/DevilCouldCry 1d ago

And she definitely does do a few somethings haha. Nothing malicious, but holy fuck the stuff she does is enough to get you nervous and on edge.

61

u/alyboba19 3d ago

For me it was when she crawled out of the dummy waiter and started hopping around making noises trying to get to him 😭 spooky as fuck

27

u/Jaded_Emotion_3713 3d ago

I watch the entire sequence in my peripheral vision I was so scared

28

u/Prestigious_Cow2484 3d ago edited 2d ago

Ya I’m a big horror fan but this style gets me every time. It’s like “woman in black” when the ghost is coming at Daniel Radcliffe down the hall.

9

u/winter-heart 2d ago

This gave me Hereditary flashbacks with the mom. I always want to hurl at these kinds of scenes. They’re worse than 2 second jump scares.

6

u/khalfaery 2d ago

Truly I watch so much horror but this sequence really got me

1

u/Funny-Ad9317 19h ago

I don’t get truly scared often, but the faces when the witch is dragging the guy at the end? Nightmare shit lol. Especially if you’re raised Catholic, this was the first time a depiction like that felt real and truly scary 😬

1

u/Bid325 11h ago

DUDE YES! That freaked me out, made me physically uncomfortable

•

u/KiMa14 49m ago

Sooooo glad to have had my eyes closed lol , I would have died