Hokum (2026)

Adam Scott spends the first chunk of Hokum being so rude to the staff of a rural Irish hotel that you’ll start rooting for the witch. His Ohm is a cranky American novelist stuck on the ending of his own trilogy, and he treats everyone at the Bilberry Woods Hotel like an editor he’s about to fire. That’s the honest problem: it takes a while to care whether he makes it out. Once Damian McCarthy gets him near the locked honeymoon suite, it stops mattering. McCarthy builds scares the old-fashioned way, with a bell, a dumbwaiter and a story about the Cailleach, a local witch, told to two kids. David Wilmot’s Jerry, a van-dwelling local, could be a lifeline or a suspect, and the movie keeps you guessing. Critics gave it 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. A 7.6 because the craft is sharp and the dread is real, even if the hero is a grump. $78.88 says you pick up a piece of chalk this week and think very seriously about drawing a circle around your bed.

What works: Damian McCarthy times his scares beautifully and grounds them in Irish folklore, and the hotel itself is a great spooky playground.

What doesn’t: Ohm is so prickly for so long that it takes a good while before you’re actually rooting for him to survive the night.

Who it’s for: Horror fans who like old-school haunted house dread, slow-building creepiness and a ghost story with a little folklore homework.