Gratuitously Frightening Hotel Horrors [SXSW 2026 Review]

Filmmaker Damian McCarthy is to spooky horror what Damien Leone (Terrifier) is to gorecore. If Leone treats his films as a form of experimental cinema designed to push the grotesque to its most extreme and fulfilled potential, then McCarthy is pushing the boundaries of spooky cinema to similar extremes. Hokum may not be a perfect film, but it is gratuitously frightening, and for horror fans with a penchant for classical, gothic scares, this is groundbreaking stuff.

The film stars Adam Scott as Ohm Bauman, a prickly and unkind author on a personal odyssey to rural Ireland, where he stays at the remote heritage hotel his parents honeymooned at forty years earlier. Now both dead, he has returned with their ashes to the last place they were truly happy. But while the Baumans had some dark secrets, the hotel has secrets of its own locked safely inside the restricted Honeymoon Suite, a room long banned and cornered off to both guests and staff. Why? Because the hotel’s elderly owner is convinced the room contains, and is haunted by, an evil witch.

When a hotel worker whom Bauman owes his life goes missing, he’s forced to confront the Honeymoon Suite firsthand. What he discovers inside the hotel’s infamously haunted top floor is something far more sinister than any urban legend or ghost story whispered about among the guests and staff. The room is not simply haunted, but is instead the epicenter of something deeply monstrous…

For those familiar with McCarthy’s previous films Oddity and Caveat, the evolution from those works into Hokum will feel natural and earned. The filmmaker has a distinct style and is unafraid to lean fully into the realms of traditional, gothic horror. In the hands of lesser storytellers, these elements might feel hokey: the antique hotel, the motif of eerie handmade dolls, and traditional folk horror involving ghosts, witches, children, and very, very bad men…

But with McCarthy, these tropes are evolved into something far more terrifying. He has taken the language of classic October Country storytelling and twisted it into something more refined and artful. Hokum is not simply spooky for the sake of atmosphere. It perverts our primal fears: loss of control, live burial, and eternal torment. McCarthy builds his films around those anxieties and pushes them to disturbing extremes.

Like Oddity before it, Hokum contains numerous kinds of monsters. Some are people, others are not. McCarthy has always had a knack for portraying frightened, cruel men who treat the women in their lives as less than human. Those characters are monstrous in their own right. But this time around, the literal monsters are even more memorable. And on that front, McCarthy has outdone himself.

Never one to overplay his hand, the supernatural horrors of Hokum are some of the most deeply unsettling images I have seen in ages. McCarthy understands the power of restraint. He knows when to show the monster and when to leave something lurking just outside the frame. The result is horror that digs beneath the skin and makes itself at home. There are images in this film that will haunt you long after viewing.

Scott fits mostly well into McCarthy’s bleak world. With his sharp features and dry, sarcastic cadence, he suits the tone of the character and the atmosphere of the setting. His costuming, dialogue, and overall presence align well with the film’s aesthetic. Performance-wise, however, Scott occasionally leaves something to be desired. Some line deliveries are wooden, and for a character carrying this much emotional baggage, he sometimes feels slightly stilted, as though his performance never fully settled in. At times, he even highlights the script’s weaker moments rather than elevating them.

But when the horror finally arrives in full force, Scott proves capable of guiding the audience through the nightmare with realism and convincing fear. When the mud hits the fan, he is just as terrified as we are. And in those moments, he becomes our effective conduit into the cruel, haunted world McCarthy has created.

The film’s imperfect acting and occasionally uneven writing may give audiences pause early on. The first act takes its time establishing Bauman’s grief and the unsettling atmosphere of the hotel. But once Hokum accelerates into its second half, there is no doubt that this is a true blue horror classic for the books.

From a narrative device involving a tape recorder filled with the doomed voice messages of a dead woman, to the resurgence of McCarthy’s uncanny rabbit motif, and a supernatural villain so frightening you may find yourself leaving the lights on for days after viewing, Hokum ultimately reveals itself as the work from a master of spooky cinema.

Hokum premiered at the SXSW Film and TV Festival in Austin, Texas, on March 13, 2026.

Tags: Adam Scott Damian McCarthy Featured Post hokum SXSW sxsw 2026

Categorized:News Reviews