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NEON has officially picked up Damian McCarthy's new movie Hokum and to celebrate, the distributor has shared an exciting first look at the supernatural horror.
In the still, which it shared via Twitter, Severance star Adam Scott (sporting a rather bewildered expression and foggy spectacles) can be seen staring at something off-camera. The surroundings are curious – with what appears to be a wide, grubby curtain and satin-sheeted bed in the background, while Scott looks to be covered in wet muck – and don't give away all that much.
We've come to expect as much from the twist-loving McCarthy, though, and given that 'Hokum' essentially means 'nonsense', we're more than happy to wait and see what surprises he's got in store.
What we do know is that Scott plays a horror novelist in the film; a Stephen King-type who travels to rural Ireland to scatter his parents' ashes – oblivious to the fact that the inn he's booked to stay at is supposedly haunted by an ancient witch. Peter Coonan (Bad Sisters) and David Wilmot (Bodkin) round out the supporting cast, though we've not been given a look at their characters just yet.
Over the last five years, McCarthy has cemented himself as a genre filmmaker to watch, having wowed audiences with Caveat (2020) and 2024's Oddity, which debuted to a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. Both films explore psychological trauma and isolation as they see their protagonists – an amnesiac driver and a blind medium – hole up somewhere remote, only to become convinced they're sharing their surroundings with the conduit of a malevolent entity; a toy rabbit and wooden mannequin, respectively. Will Hokum follow suit, or shake things up entirely?
Hopefully, we won't have to wait too much longer to find out, since NEON's tweet suggests the movie will be "coming soon". As for a specific release date, we'll be sure to keep you posted.
In the meantime, check out our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way.
