Hokum's Director Made One Of The Scariest Horror Movies Ever (and It's Streaming On Hulu)

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Picture this: You're staying alone in a country house. At night, you duck out to your car for only a moment to grab something. Once you're back inside, a strange man comes to your doorstep, claiming he saw someone else sneak inside while you were outside. You obviously don't want to open the door, but you aren't sure what's scarier: if he's lying, or if he's telling the truth.

It's a scary scenario to imagine — and scarier still brought to life, because this is the opening sequence of 2024 horror film "Oddity." /Film called "Oddity" one of the scariest films of 2024, and time is already being kind to it. Director Damian McCarthy is quickly proving himself the king of Irish horror cinema. His new film, "Hokum," will assuredly go down as one of 2026's most terrifying movies just as "Oddity" was one of 2024's. If you saw "Hokum" and want more of what McCarthy is serving, "Oddity" is just a Hulu stream away.

In an exclusive interview with /Film, McCarthy described "Oddity" as a series of horror short film concepts strung together. That aforementioned opening sequence is one; it ends without resolution before the film jumps ahead a year. The woman, Dani (Carolyn Bracken), apparently died at the hands of the man, Olin Boole (Tadhg Murphy). But Dani's twin sister Darcy (Bracken again), a blind medium and owner of an antique shop filled with occult oddities, is not convinced by the official story of her sister's death. 

Darcy comes to stay in the house where Dani died, to the unease of Dani's widower Ted (Gwilym Lee) and his new girlfriend Yana (Caroline Menton) ... especially since Darcy's brought along a life-sized golem carved of wood for some reason.

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Spoilers for "Oddity" follow.

"Oddity" is a ghost story, but don't expect to see constant apparitions roaring into the camera. (Notice I didn't say none.) Damian McCarthy girds the film with a patient, "less is more" type of terror that comes from fear of what you can't see in darkness. (Note the film has a motif of not seeing, from Darcy's blindness to Olin's single glass eye.)

The movie employs many wide and center-framed shots of long, dark hallways or corridors, just the right type of environment for things to go bump in the night. Watching "Oddity," you'll start to ask yourself if a dark and empty house might be even scarier than someone hiding inside one.

Through overuse, jump scares are now dinged as a sign of lazy filmmaking. But in "Oddity" (and "Hokum" for that matter), McCarthy demonstrates that, with proper execution, jump scares are not a crutch. "Oddity" is otherwise a measured and patient film that unnerves you with a creepy atmosphere; it earns its rare bursts of overt terror.

When the movie returns to Dani's death, she hides in a camping tent she's set up on the floor, scanning through photos on an automated camera she set up. She gets to one that shows Olin is telling the truth; there is a masked intruder in the house. Deciding to run, she slowly unzips the tent, horrified that the man will be standing in front of it. He isn't, at first... then his face pops into the right corner of the frame. I've seen "Oddity" twice, and on the second time, I still jumped at this like I had the first time.

IFC Films and Shudder

Often a jump scare where the villain appears face first before the camera will kick off a chase sequence. But by sitting in the tent, Dani is trapped, and the scene lingers on her helplessness and how imposing the intruder is. After a shot of Dani's terrified reaction, the scene returns to her POV; the intruder grabs a hammer and just stares at her for a whole beat. Then the scene cuts to a wide shot of him advancing, before another jump cut of him lying on the floor near a tent covered in blood.

The other jump scares in "Oddity" build a false sense of ease, such as showing an empty frame and then returning to it afterwards, now with a monster inside it. One scene features Yana watching an old recording of Dani and Ted. Then, she starts to watch it again, which seems completely redundant. Except this time, when the camera pans to Ted, a rotting undead Dani appears instead. The scene trained us what to expect, then pulled the rug.

"Oddity" offers little doubt from the beginning that Darcy has genuine psychic powers, so it's no surprise that she cracks her case: Ted orchestrated his own wife's murder. He'd been sleeping with Yana prior to Dani's murder, and decided murder was better than divorce because it would spare Dani the impossible task of getting over him! Ghouls and slashers are scary, but "Oddity" understands what can be even scarier is a narcissistic man with the power to harm others. That type of person is no oddity, but instead all too common.

"Oddity" is streaming on Hulu.