Oddity (2024) Review: Damian Mc Carthy’s Second Feature is a Crafty Mix of Whodunit and Supernatural Horror
Damian Mc Carthy’s sophomore feature sees the writer-director return to his same filmmaking sandbox in Oddity. Like Caveat, his latest movie takes place primarily in a country house in a remote setting while adopting a similar twisty non-linear storytelling technique. The movie also features a creepy figure in the form of a wooden dummy instead of a toy drumming bunny and Mc Carthy continues to favour a dread-inducing atmosphere that deliberately creeps up on you over cheap shocks.
Oddity gets off to a nerve-racking start, evoking the look and feel of a home-invasion horror as the story begins with Dani (Carolyn Bracken), who is all alone in the country home while her doctor husband, Ted (Gwilym Lee) on duty at a psychiatric hospital. Then comes a mysterious one-eyed stranger (Tadgh Murphy), claiming that he means no harm other than warning her someone has sneaked into her house. He wants to help but Dani remains sceptical about whether he’s telling the truth or tricking her into unlocking the front door. It was a genuinely suspenseful, yet attention-grabbing moment that Mc Carthy made good use of the movie’s isolated setting, a frightened woman and a stranger to build a foreboding sense of dread and escalating tension.
The opening scene sets the tone for the mystery surrounding the fate of Dani, who died (not a spoiler here) that night. What exactly happened to her? Who killed her? Those questions linger in my mind as I watch the movie but Mc Carthy chooses to hold that thought by abruptly skipping ahead with a time-jumping narrative. As weird as it sounds, it somehow works to throw us off-balance and wants us to tag along for the labyrinthine ride similar to Caveat‘s storytelling structure and see where it goes.
This is where the following protagonist is introduced: A blind, white-haired medium named Darcy (also Bracken) and she happens to be the twin sister of the deceased Dani. She owns a shop called Odello’s Oddities selling peculiar stuff. Although it has been a year since Dani’s death, Darcy still wants to find out the truth and this leads to her subsequent visit to Ted’s home. She has a crate shipped there as well and that evening, her brother-in-law’s new girlfriend Yana (Caroline Menton) is at home. With Ted needs to get back to the hospital, he has no choice but to leave his girlfriend to entertain Darcy.
It’s just the two of them between Darcy and Yana and not to forget, a sinister-looking full-size wooden dummy the former brings to Ted’s home as a gift. The introduction of the wooden dummy and how it sits at the table with its mouth wide open evokes a growing sense of unease, particularly in a scene where Yana becomes curious as she looks around the gift. That will-or-will-not-the-wooden-dummy-turns-into-a-reanimated-figure moment allows Mc Carthy to stage paranoia and anticipation. And of course, exploring the fear of the unknown through the clever use of static shots, slow pans and other eclectic camera movements that Mc Carthy and his cinematographer Colm Hogan gamely incorporated altogether to turn into a relentlessly atmospheric horror.
Shades of psychological murder-mystery and monster-movie inspiration (the wooden dummy) aside, Mc Carthy again delves into the haunted-house genre as he transforms Ted’s home into a house of unspeakable terror with a mix of supernatural. The latter is where the movie excels in its jump-scare techniques. I always find jump scares to be cheap thrills and downright annoying. This is especially true when these overused horror tactics are included just for the sake of it instead of incorporating them subtly into the buildup of a movie.
Well, the good news is that Mc Carthy perfectly timed the jump scares without telegraphing them, one of which actually had me startled. Now, that’s how you make a well-staged jump scare. I can imagine the significantly visceral impact of watching this on the big screen, even though streaming the Oddity screener at home proves effective enough.
As for the cast, Carolyn Bracken steals the show playing dual roles as Dani and Darcy, notably her latter part as a highly determined and no-nonsense blind woman trying to uncover the mystery of her sister’s death. Gwilym Lee and Caroline Menton both deliver solid support in their respective roles as Ted and Yana.
The rest of the technical credits from Richard G. Mitchell’s ominous score to Brian Philip Davis’ crafty editing and Aza Hand’s impeccable sound design all deserve equal praise. Mc Carthy’s storytelling approach can be convoluted at times while the sly ending somehow dilutes the narrative impact of a payoff after all the deliberate buildup from the beginning. Maybe it’s just me but that doesn’t stop me from ranking Oddity as one of the best horror movies of the year.
