If there is one thing that Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy can take credit for—something that separates him from a large swath of horror creatives working today—it is the ability to craft a bizarrely unique and terrifying story. With his debut feature, 2020’s Caveat, McCarthy chained an amnesiac drifter inside a dilapidated island home to look after a strange catatonic little girl and her raggedy bunny rabbit toy. The director’s newest feature, Oddity, unconventionally explores classic themes, delivering a chilling story with plenty of quality scares.
This time, McCarthy enlists You Are Not My Mother star Carolyn Bracken to perform double duty as twin sisters Dani and Darcy. The film immediately sets up a seemingly predictable scene: Dani, along with her husband, Dr. Ted Timmis (The Great’s Gwilym Lee), is fixing up a beautiful gothic-style home. The kicker? Ted works nights at the mental hospital, leaving Dani alone one evening; when a former patient of Ted’s arrives at the house warning Dani of an apparent intruder, the stage gets set for a classic game of “Is he or isn’t he?”

Courtesy of IFC
The next scene throws Oddity forward nearly one year. Dani is dead, murdered at the hands of somebody—presumably the mental patient, Olin (Tadhg Murphy)—and her blind psychic sister Darcy takes it upon herself to visit Ted and his new girlfriend, Yana (Caroline Menton), for the anniversary of Dani’s death. What the couple does not know, however, is that Darcy is bringing a life-sized wooden mannequin with her to uncover the truth behind Dani’s death.
From this point on, Oddity takes place in two distinct sets: the presumably haunted home and Ted’s mental institution. The film conjures the mystery well and continues constructing what we think are tropes, only to subvert expectations in interesting ways later on. McCarthy weaves story threads in simple but effective ways, cutting any glut and dropping hints at the characters’ true intentions within natural dialogue and insert shots.

Courtesy of IFC
Adding to its efficacy is the fact that Oddity features little fluff in terms of editing or cinematography; every element of this film looks and feels handmade because it is, and chooses to evoke an unnerving atmosphere through traditional craftmanship and well-executed scares rather than fancy filters, aspect ratios, or similar techniques. In that way, the film resembles straightforward horror from the 20th century more than most modern horror, which is a mixed bag of big-budget jump scare-palooza or metaphor-ridden, nihilistic technical experiments.
To be specific, let’s begin with the Wooden Man. The doll is sufficiently disturbing in its appearance and how McCarthy blocks it throughout the film. It just sits there, mouth agape, never moving from its place at the dining table; modern audiences are undoubtedly conditioned to watch this mysterious humanoid figure but may find themselves pleasantly surprised with how it gets used. McCarthy and DP Colm Hogan also use natural light and darkness in brilliantly contrasting ways and play with our emotions using bait-and-switches that rarely ever feel cheap.

Courtesy of IFC
Finally, the cast shows up big time, particularly Bracken, Lee, Menton, and supporting actor Steve Wall as orderly Ivan. Several characters hide something, and the actors do an excellent job subduing their emotions while ranging from cheeky to menacing. As an enjoyer of Caveat and Oddity, I find the former’s third act more horrifying than the whole of Oddity, and it features some of the most unsettling scares of the past several years. However, on the whole, Oddity is the more well-crafted of the two projects and a promising step in the right direction for McCarthy, who is emerging as one of the most inventive Irish horror filmmakers of the modern era. It helps that Oddity is arguably the more accessible of his two features, which will hopefully translate to well-deserved market success.
Oddity is now playing in theaters nationwide.
Missed any our latest reviews? Read them under Reviews & Insights now!
Sounds promising