Neon and Waypoint Entertainment’s Cweature Features have boarded Irish writer and director Damian McCarthy’s Hokum, starring Adam Scott (Severance).
Peter Coonan and David Wilmot join Scott in an ensemble cast that includes Florence Ordesh, Will O’Connell, Michael Patric, Siox C, Brendan Conroy, Austin Amelio and Ezra Carlisle. The supernatural horror thriller, now in postproduction after production in Ireland, has Scott playing reclusive novelist Ohm Bauman as he retreats to a remote Irish inn to scatter his parents’ ashes.
He soon discovers the staff’s tales of an ancient witch haunting the honeymoon suite has filled his mind. That’s followed by disturbing visions and a shocking disappearance draw him into a nightmarish confrontation with the darkest corners of his past.
The genre pic will get a U.S. theatrical release via Neon in 2026, while Neon International will shop the foreign rights to international buyers starting at the Toronto Film Festival next week.
Cweature Features joins a producer list that includes Image Nation, Spooky Pictures and Team Thrives, who co-financed the project. Hokum follows McCarthy’s feature debut Oddity, which premiered at SXSW and won the Audience Award in the Midnighter section.
Hokum is produced by Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, Derek Dauchy, Ruth Treacy, Julianne Forde and Mairtín de Barra. Executive producers are Ken Kao, Josh Rosenbaum, Ben Ross, Dan Kagan, Rami Yasin, Andrew Childs, Bryan Meng and Dr. Terence Chan.
The distribution deal was negotiated by Jason Wald for Neon, Josh Rosenbaum for Cweature Features and Ben Ross for Image Nation.