Sean Parker
As a horror lover and reviewer, very little creeps up and surprises me. The ones that do often make the year-end lists. Reading about director Damian Mc Carthy’s Oddity over the last few weeks as it was released in US theaters and seeing the photos of the film’s wooden doll, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had seen 1995’s The Fear and 1988’s Pin, both of which employ killer life-sized dolls and are somewhat cringey B-movies. After hitting many of the right notes in atmosphere and tone in 2020’s Caveat, Mc Carthy smothers Oddity with a similar aesthetic to create what is ultimately one of the scariest films of the year.
Beginning with a cold open in the vein of Scream, but sans the phone, a woman is seen solely renovating the inside of a cold-toned, brick-exposed home in the countryside. After speaking with her husband, she loses track of her phone, finding the device is no longer where she thinks she put it. Unease sets in, and then a knock at the door triggers the hairs on the backs of the audience’s necks. A rather unbelievable scenario from the confessed asylum patient (Tadhg Murphy) with a glass eye comes forth, proclaiming there’s a man in the house. The choice to believe the man on the other side of the door requires a great deal of trust, and whenever Dani (Carolyn Bracken) attempts to obtain any new information, it makes the question of what side of the door the threat is on that much more difficult to discern.
Before the audience is granted any answers, a year has passed. Dani met her end that night, and the case was closed with the alleged culprit caught. The film shifts gears to curio shop owner Darcy (also Bracken), Dani’s blind twin sister, who has a knack for knowing everything about a person posthumously by simply holding a personal item. The more connected to the item the person was, the better. Following the death of Dani’s suspected killer, Dani’s husband, Ted (Gwilym Lee), gifts Darcy a memento from the supposed murderer. The object reveals the police caught the wrong guy, and Darcy decides to impose on Ted and his new girlfriend, Yana (Caroline Menton), who are now living in the place where Dani was murdered.
The finished product of Ted and Yana’s home is precarious. The warm stain on the wooden tones clash against the cold, hard brick that fills the space. This ardent labor of love was Dani’s project, and the result suggests the shifting tide in Ted’s love life. The stolid and soulless space incorporates a metaphor for the pompous, closed-minded inhabitants. Darcy interjects her presence in the new lovebirds’ life on the exact day of Dani’s murder by sending a large chest to the house ahead of her arrival containing the large wooden man gifted to her and Dani’s mother by a witch when they were kids. What transpires after Darcy’s arrival is a round-robin of creepy, unsettling, and uncomfortable events, leading to the reveal of what really happened to Dani Timmins.
Carolyn Bracken deserves profound acknowledgment for her performances in the film. The actress, who plays two characters in Oddity, injects differentiating subtleties into Dani and Darcy beyond the hairstyle change. It was almost unbelievable to me she was playing both roles. The pure warmth and hopefulness Dani exudes in the brief time the audience spends with the character is virtually non-existent in Darcy’s focused, fixated quest for answers. Realistically, the cast carries Oddity beyond Mc Carthy’s visual overtones and a brilliant score by Richard G. Mitchel. The nuances of the film’s performers go a long way in covering the more linear answers and plotholes in Mc Carthy’s script. Despite the story’s inclination to embrace what’s suspected, Mc Carthy playfully infuses haunted house elements into Oddity to keep the path there a thrill ride of unexpected scares.
The supernatural is the genuine focus of Oddity. Darcy works in a store filled with cursed items, warning patrons not to steal while promising all curses will be lifted once the item is purchased. Darcy may channel Needful Things’ Gaunt, but in her opposition to Doctor Ted and pharmaceutical rep Yana, she’s merely the possibility of something they’re unwilling to accept. A short conversation between Ted and Darcy uncovers a brain cancer diagnosis that led Darcy to lose her eyesight. Surviving against all odds blurs the connected tissue of what can and can’t be explained. Did the cancer removal cause Darcy’s heightened abilities? Or is it more likely people aren’t receptive to otherworldly information? As much is suggested when Yana tells Ted she’s seen apparitions of Dani in the house when she awakens alone in the middle of the night. She then attempts to show him the evidence, but he brushes it off.
Oddity feels a bit like a mashup of various inspirations in the horror and thriller spaces. As previously mentioned, large wooden men films already exist in horror spaces, though Oddity’s might be utilized the best of the niche subgenre. Audiences will be kept entertained throughout the film by the sheer unsettled feeling that permeates throughout the film. Those looking to figure out a mystery won’t have as much fun, as Mc Carthy’s movie is much more concerned with the possibilities of the supernatural than it is about the mundanity of reality. Go to a theater, sit in the dark, consider the possibilities, and let Oddity scare the sh*t out of you.
Oddity held its Quebec Premiere to close out the Fantasia International Film Festival on August 4. For additional information, see the film’s page on the Fantasia website. Oddity is currently in theaters.
Oddity – Official Trailer | HD | IFC Films
Now in theaters. After Dani is brutally murdered, her blind occultist twin sister Darcy, goes after those responsible using inherited haunted items as her tools of revenge.
