--- title: 'Hokum' Filmmaker Damian McCarthy on That Mind-Bending Ending description: The writer-director breaks down the ambiguous final act of his haunted hotel horror canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/04/28/hokum-ending-damian-mccarthy-interview/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-05-04T13:53:33.568Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-12T07:05:36.639Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 'Hokum' Filmmaker Damian McCarthy on That Mind-Bending Ending og:description: The writer-director breaks down the ambiguous final act of his haunted hotel horror og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/04/28/hokum-ending-damian-mccarthy-interview/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd49cd44b77ecac06/69f0d9ff1558f4ae71ca29e2/Hokum-Adam-Scott-Dumbwaiter.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Hokum-Adam-Scott-Dumbwaiter.jpeg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Hokum' Filmmaker Damian McCarthy on That Mind-Bending Ending twitter:description: The writer-director breaks down the ambiguous final act of his haunted hotel horror twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd49cd44b77ecac06/69f0d9ff1558f4ae71ca29e2/Hokum-Adam-Scott-Dumbwaiter.jpeg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # _Hokum_ Filmmaker Damian McCarthy on the Horror Movie's Mind-Bending Ending > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer May 4, 2026 1:53 PM UTC  Adam Scott as author Ohm Bauman in Hokum. Adam Scott as author Ohm Bauman in Hokum.Neon  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer May 4, 2026 1:53 PM UTC **_Warning: This post contains spoilers for_** **Hokum** **_, now in theaters._** Damian McCarthy says he doesn't believe in ghosts. If you've seen any of the Irish writer-director's [horror](https://time.com/article/2026/04/24/if-wishes-could-kill-ending/) films, you may find that difficult to wrap your head around. Thanks to his 2020 debut feature _Caveat_ and 2024 breakout follow-up _Oddity_, McCarthy has established himself as a purveyor of the type of supernatural scares that go bump—or more—in the night. Now, his latest atmospheric chiller is poised to become one of the [buzziest horror films](https://time.com/7342338/most-anticipated-movies-2026/) of the year to date. In _Hokum_, the Cork native transports viewers to Ireland’s remote and possibly haunted Bilberry Woods Hotel alongside prickly American author Ohm Baumann ([Adam Scott](https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2025/7273826/adam-scott/)) for a good ol' fashioned hair-raiser of a ghost story. After putting the depressing finishing touches on the much-anticipated final book in his famed _Conquistador_ trilogy, Ohm has made the trip across the pond to scatter his parents ashes where they honeymooned many years ago, a place he knows his mom was happy. But when he arrives at Bilberry Woods, Ohm overhears the hotel's owner telling a pair of frightened young boys about the witch he supposedly has trapped in the now-sealed-off honeymoon suite. According to Mr. Cob (Brendan Conroy), this particular witch gets her jollies dragging humans down to the underworld to be torn apart by evil spirits. "There's something quite creepy about witches in how much power they have and how they seem to really be in control," McCarthy says of his choice of entity. "Their motives are very vague. With other monsters like vampires or wolf men, what they want is quite clear—whether it's destruction or blood or whatever the case may be. But we don't exactly know what a witch is up to." Ohm scoffs at Cob's tale, but it's clear he's struggling with some pretty vicious demons of his own. The cause of this unresolved trauma is laid bare that evening as he begins telling Bilberry Woods bartender Fiona (Florence Ordesh) about his childhood. When Ohm was just 9 years old, his beloved mother was murdered, a tragedy that caused his father to turn into an abusive alcoholic who drank himself to an early grave. Later in the film, we learn it was actually Ohm himself who accidentally shot and killed his mom while playing with his dad's handgun, exponentially compounding the horror of the situation. ## The terror begins  The rabbit man makes a haunting appearance in Hokum. Neon Ohm spends the remainder of that first evening drinking and belittling the hotel's staff (two activities he seems all too fond of) before going up to his room and trying to hang himself. He's saved by Fiona, who, despite Ohm's abrasiveness, cares enough to go check on him when she senses something is off. Weeks later, when Ohm returns to the hotel and learns Fiona has been missing since the Halloween party that took place the night after his suicide attempt, it's up to him to repay the favor. In his pursuit to find out what happened to her, he ends up spending a terrifying night in the aforementioned honeymoon suite—and facing a psychological reckoning that's not for the faint of heart. "In that first act, I was hoping the audience would think, 'I really hope this guy gets punished. I really want to see him get everything that's coming to him.' Because he's quite cruel and very standoffish with everybody," McCarthy says. "But then as we get to know him and find out why he is the way he is, hopefully they'll go, 'Well, there's more to him than just being this arrogant, successful writer that thinks he's above everybody. Maybe I'd like to see him actually escape this situation." After teaming up with local vagabond Jerry ([David Wilmot](https://time.com/6191990/best-hbo-max-shows/)), a friend of Fiona's who claims her ghost alerted him to the fact that she was trapped in the hotel while he was high on a brew of magic mushroom powder mixed with goat's milk, Ohm discovers the truth about Fiona's disappearance: She was drugged, dragged up to the honeymoon suite, and sent down to the hotel's sealed-off basement in a broken dumbwaiter to die a painfully slow death. The perpetrator of this heinous crime was Mal (Peter Coonan), an employee at the hotel and the son-in-law of Mr. Cob who had an affair with Fiona, got her pregnant, and decided to get rid of her so no one would find out. All three of McCarthy's features have revolved in some respect around characters seeking justice for the murder of a woman by a man close to them, a plot point the filmmaker admits he returns to because of how much it scares him in real life. "I have no personal history with it, but there's always been something about that kind of violence against women that's really affected me. It's just the most awful thing," he says. "So when I try to think of the worst character possible, it's always these cowardly, detestable men where there's nothing cool or slick about how villainous they are." ## Is it all hokum?  Adam Scott as Ohm in Hokum. Neon Mal isn't the only evil Ohm is up against over the course of the night. Following encounters with a disturbing variety of spirits, Ohm must contend with Mr. Cob's witch, who would love nothing more than to capture him for her underworld prison. Thankfully, the only person who ultimately falls victim to that horrifying fate is Mal, as Ohm manages to evade her clutches first by employing an old folklore trick Fiona taught him and later by breaking free of both the literal and figurative chains shackling him with the help of his mother's ghost. Following Ohm's escape, Bilberry Woods is consumed by a fire Mal set to try and cover his tracks. And while the remains of Fiona and Jerry, who Mal also ended up killing, are found, no evidence of Mal himself is ever discovered. While Ohm is recovering in the hospital, Alby (Will O'Connell), the bellboy Ohm spent his first night at Bilberry Woods mercilessly harassing, pays him a visit and apologetically reveals he spiked the whiskey Ohm was drinking during the night he spent in the honeymoon suite with a pretty hefty dose of Jerry's mushroom powder. Was everything supernatural Ohm experienced a hallucination or, as Jerry claimed, do the mushrooms simply open one's mind enough to see the truth of the world? "I like the idea that some of it is open to interpretation and there is a discussion to be had," McCarthy says of the twist. "For me, it's pretty clear which parts of it are absolutely a trip and which aren't." The trick to figuring out what's real and what's not, according to McCarthy, lies in Ohm's glasses. "If you're seeing something from his POV, when the camera turns and you get the reverse shot, just take a look at whether what he's seeing is reflected in his glasses," he says. "That's the way into it." As for the new _Conquistador_ ending Ohm writes in the wake of this nightmarish ordeal, McCarthy explains he was aiming for a moment of catharsis. "The character of Ohm is quite internal. He doesn't really talk to anybody a whole lot," he says. "There had to be a way to show something has changed inside him. He's going to be putting this thing out into the world and he's realized well why not make it a bit more hopeful and positive." ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/28/hokum-ending-damian-mccarthy-interview/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/28/hokum-ending-damian-mccarthy-interview/"},"headline":"Hokum Filmmaker Damian McCarthy on the Horror Movie's Mind-Bending Ending","datePublished":"2026-05-04T13:53:33.568Z","dateModified":"2026-05-12T07:05:36.639Z","description":"The writer-director breaks down the ambiguous final act of his haunted hotel horror","url":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/28/hokum-ending-damian-mccarthy-interview/","keywords":["movies","feature","culturepod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd49cd44b77ecac06/69f0d9ff1558f4ae71ca29e2/Hokum-Adam-Scott-Dumbwaiter.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd49cd44b77ecac06/69f0d9ff1558f4ae71ca29e2/Hokum-Adam-Scott-Dumbwaiter.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hokum-Adam-Scott-Dumbwaiter.jpeg","caption":"","creditText":"Neon","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/28/hokum-ending-damian-mccarthy-interview/","name":"Hokum Filmmaker Damian McCarthy on the Horror Movie's Mind-Bending Ending"}}]}] ```