Adam Scott’s latest foray into horror looks set to trade in unease rather than outright spectacle, with the newly released trailer for Hokum leaning heavily into atmosphere, folklore and psychological dread.

Directed by Damian McCarthy, the film centres on a reclusive novelist who travels to a remote Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes, only to find himself pulled into a spiralling nightmare. What begins as a quiet act of mourning quickly curdles into something far stranger, as local stories of a witch haunting the building begin to bleed into reality.

The trailer itself is less interested in plot than it is in mood. Flickers of disturbing imagery, half-glimpsed figures and a growing sense of paranoia suggest a slow-burn descent, one that aligns neatly with McCarthy’s previous work Caveat and Oddity. There’s a deliberate ambiguity at play here, with the film seemingly blurring the line between grief, guilt and something genuinely supernatural.

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Scott, best known for his more restrained, often comedic roles in films like Step Brothers, Parks & Recreation and Leap Year, feels like an especially intriguing fit. Here, he’s positioned as a man quietly unravelling, caught between rationality and whatever is lurking just out of sight. It’s a performance that, even in brief glimpses, hints at something far more fragile and internal than your typical horror protagonist.

Set against the isolating backdrop of rural Ireland, Hokum appears to draw heavily from folk horror traditions, weaving in elements of witchcraft and local mythology. There’s a suggestion that the film’s terror won’t come from jump scares, but from a creeping, inescapable atmosphere that tightens as the narrative unfolds. The film is shaping up to be a quietly unnerving addition to the year’s horror slate. Less concerned with immediate shocks, it instead looks poised to linger, unsettling in ways that are harder to shake.

Hokum is in UK cinemas on May 1st.

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