Major spoilers for Hokum lie ahead, so read on if you dare.
One of the latest horror movies to hit cinemas is Damien McCarthy’s Hokum, and I still get a chill down my spine when I think about the film. It stars Adam Scott as a depressed novelist, who goes to spread his parents ashes at the same Ireland-based hotel where his folks spent their honeymoon. While there, Scott's character, Ohm, makes some pretty haunting discoveries and crosses paths with the bulgy-eyed monster that has been haunting me ever since I saw the movie’s trailer. Now, I'm even more unnerved after learning about the character's origins.
CinemaBlend spoke to writer/director Damien McCarthy and Severance actor Adam Scott about (the critically well-received) Hokum, and the filmmaker broke down the creation of the scariest element within the film. In McCarthy’s words:
So, it’s Jack the Jackass. I guess in the context of the story, it was a kid's TV show that Adam's character used to watch as a child, and it was playing on the TV when something terrible happened. And I think it's just the idea that this innocent childhood thing is now warped into something that's haunting him and following him and he associates with a really bad time. It's also just a way to kind of work in exposition in a kind of a horrifying way.
This is where I want to get into SPOILERS so, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, think twice before pushing on.
Quite frankly, Jack the Jackass might now be one of the scariest movie monsters for me. What I find really interesting about Hokum is how the movie unveils Jack without giving viewers a completely clear idea of who he is. So McCarthy really clears some stuff up with this answer. We see Jack on the TV set when Adam Scott’s Ohm is trapped in the honeymoon suite in the middle of the film. Amid my screening, I didn't know if the pair had met before, but we now know that the creature is directly inspired by something from Ohm's childhood.
In the scene with Jack, there's also a flashback to Ohm's childhood and how he ends up accidentally shooting and killing his mother. Prior to that, it's known that his mom dies via a shotgun and that it leads to his father becoming an alcoholic and dying shortly after. But this revelation is such a great twist.
Also, it's totally understandably that Ohm would be haunted throughout his life by the fact that he caused his mother's death and that it would come up during his stay at the hellish hotel in Ireland. But, of course I also had to ask if Jack the Jackass was that hair-raising on TV when little Ohm watched it as a kid. With that, McCarthy provided an interesting response:
It was said in the world of the story, I think if you were to dig up that footage, I don't think he could possibly have looked that demonic and horrifying. But, you know, probably close enough.
I’ll admit, I thought there was going to be a lot more to Jack the Jackass then there is but, honestly, his terrifying presence in that scene alone was enough to make a huge impression on me. I just can’t imagine watching any show when I was a kid that featured a character anything close to that. Still, the fact that the image is inspired by a children’s TV show from Ohm's past only makes the whole movie even scarier.
Even though the Jack the Jackass of it all is very unnerving, seeing this part of the storyline get pay off in the finale really makes this movie even better. Ohm ends up in the hotel basement – which seemed to be some kind of gateway to hell – and he comes across the ghost of his mother who helps him forgive himself for her death. I don’t know about you, but I was verging on tears over how the storyline wrapped up. So kudos to Damien McCarthy for tying up that up in a sweet bow (after scaring the heck out of me with Jack).
Hokum is definitely a gem of a horror movie, and I wonder how it will stack up with other movies of the genre coming out on the 2026 movie schedule, especially as the summer season kicks off. Be sure to check it out, and keep an eye out on upcoming horror movies head to cinemas in the coming months.
