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Ever since he broke into the movie industry with the unrated, micro-budget horror movie Caveat, Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy has become one of the most interesting directors working in the genre today. His 2024 follow-up Oddity was a breakout hit when it debuted as a Shudder exclusive, and now he’s back with an even more ambitious scary movie in Hokum, which stars Adam Scott (Severance, Parks and Recreation) as an American novelist who visits an Irish hotel that turns out to be haunted by an evil witch.
Hokum arrives in theaters on May 1, but McCarthy is already thinking about his next scary movie, which he says may be his last pure horror film — at least for the foreseeable future.
“I definitely want to make one more out-and-out horror film just to see if I can take everything I’ve learned and apply it,” McCarthy tells Polygon.
Specifically, the director thinks he can still push the scares in his movies even further — and that’s really saying something for a horror filmmaker who’s best known for terrifying his audiences.
McCarthy says that each time he’s watched Hokum with a theater full of people, he’s been happy with the results, but can’t help but wonder if it could be even scarier. “The reaction is so good. People are gasping, screaming and laughing — all the things you want them to do. But I watch and I think, Oh yeah, I know how I could have made this so much more frightening.“
I always think of Peter Jackson.
In some cases that’s as simple as redoing a single jumpscare. In others, it’s about making a scene “more punishing” to watch. All those little moments have added up to a sense that McCarthy has one more, truly bone-curdling horror movie left in him.
“Something’s kind of clicked with me now,” he says. “If I was to do it again, I’d put everything into it, and then I think I’d move on.”
This isn’t hyperbole. McCarthy has been working on his next script for a while, though he admits to letting some of the reviews for his other movies influence the direction he’s taking with it. He can’t say much about the plot just yet, but he does offer up a few intriguing details, including a horror subgenre of sorts.
“It’s self-contained, almost like a classic haunted house movie,” McCarthy says. “Somebody just cannot leave a property. I think there’s something really fun about that.”
As for what comes next after his haunted house flick, McCarthy wants to explore other genres without leaving horror entirely.
“I’d always like to stay in horror somewhat,” he says. “So even if I make a crime movie, there’s still that element of horror in there.”
With a note of optimism, he compares his possible future career to another talented filmmaker who started in horror and moved far beyond the genre.
“I always think of Peter Jackson,” McCarthy says. “He started off with horror movies and then he goes and does something incredible like The Lord the Rings, which then has these moments of absolute amazing horror and jump scares in them — very frightening imagery. So if I got to make a sci-fi movie or a historical adventure or something like this, there’d always be that element of horror to it.”
Hokum releases in theaters on May 1.
