Hokum 4K 2026 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

American writer Ohm Baumann arrives at an old hotel in the Irish countryside, where his long-deceased parents spent their honeymoon. He scatters their ashes and, in a deep depression, ponders how to finish his latest novel. But the honeymoon suite—which the writer, out of sentimentality, wants to visit—is securely locked; reportedly, a witch is locked inside.

Review 4K Movie

According to the great internet, Irish folklore not only exists but is also one of the richest and best-preserved traditions in Europe. It encompasses ancient mythology, tales of leprechauns and banshees, folk songs, dances, and a deep belief in the supernatural, closely intertwined with the Irish landscape. We can’t say for certain just how closely the promising Damien McCarthy adhered to the letter of his people’s folklore, but we can say with certainty that you’ll see one of the best horror films of the year—if you dare. And you really do need to be brave—the director-screenwriter places his repulsive protagonist in such circumstances that you’ll hardly be able to sit calmly alone while watching “Hokum”; the urge to glance at a dark corner of the room will constantly be gnawing at you. You know, like, is someone watching your beautiful body as you sit there? There were very few screenings in Almaty, so we decided to go with the 10:00 a.m. one. Someone else had also booked a ticket for that same time on a weekend morning...

There were two seats, so the screening was definitely meant for three viewers. And knowing that right now, early in the morning, outside the theater, the city is slowly waking up and kicking off various holiday celebrations, we watched the horror movie with relish, as if everything were happening at night. It was funny enough to give you chills, really. The main plot is painfully obvious. A writer pens some dark stories, then flies off to a hotel in faraway Ireland where his parents once spent their honeymoon. As the main character himself explains, someone shot his mother in the face, and his dad couldn’t come to terms with the loss and clearly drank himself to death. It sounds harsh, but things like that do happen in real life. The atmosphere in the hotel itself is pretty sleepy—there are practically no guests—but the staff are all decent, by the way. You know, there aren’t any hints that the Irish are somehow strange or ready to give the visiting Yankees a hard time. There’s one room, specifically for newlyweds, that’s always locked. Rumor has it that a rather unattractive little witch lives there, yeah. You might think, “There have been so many witches in movies...”

They sure found something to scare people with. Yeah, just wait until the main character—who’s quite the jerk, by the way—ends up inside that room, where Damien McCarthy will really send a chill down your spine. We won’t go into how, with whom, or why the writer snuck into that cursed room—that’d be a spoiler, and it’s not all that important anyway. The main thing is that your Irish director doesn’t let up, and with every film he masterfully maps out the visual landscape of his fantasies, skillfully balancing between the tangible real world and something otherworldly.

Interestingly, in “Hokum,” he keeps a small mystery alive right up until the very end regarding whether it was all real or if the creative professional had simply had one too many, since during his mini-quest he never parted with a sturdy flask that clearly didn’t contain tap water. And what’s great is that even if you don’t think about it, it was still terrifying as hell—whether in the dark room or in another mysterious location—while the bearded guy with glasses or the bespectacled bearded man searched for different ways out of the situation.

On the other hand, if you set aside the horror elements, what unfolds before the audience is a deeply sad and tragic story about a middle-aged man who continues to live with the inner child within him—a child who suffered a very serious trauma during his childhood. No matter what horrors associated with supernatural demonic forces are unfolding around him, sometimes it’s real people who can cause the most terror. In short, Damien McCarthy—whom we deeply respect and who is also the author of another review here—has skillfully woven together several intriguing themes, which is why the 100 minutes never once feel too long or drawn out. By the way, one of the director’s particular strengths lies in his ability to present memorable, terrifying images, as was the case with the rabbit with a drum in *Caveat* and the wooden doll in *Oddity*. In his third feature-length film, he pulled a rather creepy Jack-the-Donkey with bulging eyes out of his deck—a character who’s also perfectly suited to be the source of evil in a vivid nightmare. You’d be better off not running into him in the dark.

You’ve got to see it. It was a pleasure to hear Vsevolod Kuznetsov’s voice in the dub—the same pleasant timbre as always. It’s doubly pleasing that they didn’t go with a localization title like *Astral: The Witch in the Honeymoon Suite* or *The Conjuring: The Witch at the Hotel*. There’s just one detail that made us consider “Hokum” less impressive than the director’s previous project, “Oddity.” The inclusion of Joseph Bishara, whose signature style is immediately recognizable whenever something scary and sudden appears on screen. It all sounded and looked a bit derivative, somehow. At moments like these, we even wondered: would Damien McCarthy have managed to instill fear if it weren’t for the signature violins of the composer behind the *Astral* and *The Conjuring* universes...? The answer: definitely yes! But when a film is produced by a big shot like Roy Lee, you can’t avoid those overused tropes. And we’re grateful that “Hokum” didn’t end up as a shabby, unambitious run-of-the-mill flick. So far, it’s one of the best of the year. Why “one of”? 2026 is packed with promising horror films.