To start, I want to make sure that I give Oddity, a new Irish supernatural and melodramatic horror movie, its flowers for being effectively scary and expertly crafted. You would be hard pressed to find a horror movie this year as technically savvy as Oddity is. That being said, I couldn’t help but find myself a little bit… bored… by the experience. I hate saying that, especially since I really liked and appreciated Oddity for what it is. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that Oddity desperately needs a little bit more energy. The meat and potatoes are there, and are perfectly cooked. But the meal as a whole is lacking spice and there is definitely no tasty beverage to wash it all down. To be fair, there are a few scenes that were nothing short of spectacular. Let’s get into it…
But first, a little background. Oddity is the second feature film from writer/director Damian Mc Carthy. Mc Carthy’s previous movie, Caveat, his feature debut, was released back in 2020. Both Oddity and Caveat were filmed in and take place in Ireland, with Caveat earning solid reviews across the board from general movie-goers and critics alike. Overall, the Irish horror movie scene hasn’t always been as prolific as one might expect from Bram Stoker’s country of origin. But in recent years there has been a resurgence in the genre output of the Emerald Isle. Films like The Devil’s Doorway, The Hallow, and The Hole in the Ground have become cult successes with the filmmaker of the latter, Lee Cronin, achieving mainstream success with his Hollywood horror reboot, Evil Dead Rise, which he wrote and directed. With that trajectory in play, I look forward to exploring more of what Ireland has to offer the horror genre in the future… Now, back to Oddity.
Oddity opens in a rural home where we are introduced to Dani, played by Carolyn Bracken (You Are Not My Mother). While working on the home, at night, a ghostly stranger shows up at the door with an ominous warning, and a request to enter. This quagmire happens right off the rip, while the audience is still settling in. Before the viewer can even react, we jump ahead to the near future, and what happened that night to Dani is the core mystery of the story. I’m avoiding spoilers, so I won’t be specific, but since we find out that Dani was murdered almost immediately after the time jump occurs, it’s safe to say that isn’t exactly a spoiler.
After the time jump, we are introduced to Dani’s widowed husband, Ted. Ted is played by Gwilym Lee (Bohemian Rhapsody), who has moved on with a new lover, Yana. Yana is played by Caroline Menton. Ted works at a nearby hospital, seemingly an intense and work-obsessed kind of guy. Another character introduced at this point is Dani’s sister, Darcy, also played by Carolyn Bracken. Darcy has now decided she wants to solve Dani’s murder. Darcy is blind, and a paranormal obsessed psychic who shows up on Ted and Yana’s doorstep with a human-sized wooden mannequin, a real creepy bastard. The three of them, well four of them, exist in the same movie, to put it bluntly, and Oddity plays out as a paranormal mystery sprinkled with melodramatic elements as well as some very horrifying moments brought on by not only the mannequin, but also a familiar ghost haunting the property…
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The core mystery is the surefire weak point of the flick for me. ‘Core mystery’ might be the wrong way to put it. More so, how the story is structured is what I disliked most about this movie. The narrative is pretty dull, and I found myself forgetting what to care about. Bouncing around between characters and slowly unraveling the core mystery feels like a crutch to set up the well thought out and meticulously crafted scary sequences. Which I guess I am fine with. It’s easy to follow along with and quite simple. I just couldn’t help but think that Oddity would have benefited enormously from having a different narrative setup, mostly regarding the conflict between the characters…
On the other hand, I absolutely loved a few scenes in Oddity. One shot in particular, where a ghostly presence chases a character right out the front door will for sure be one of my favorite horror scenes of the year. Mc Carthy very clearly has a real talent for crafting and executing scary scenes. The mannequin is consistently well used, and the payoff is effective each time. Like I said, I couldn’t care less about the narrative of Oddity. But there are plenty of examples throughout the movie of extremely high-level technical horror filmmaking. The intended-for-laughs grand finale feels extremely out of place, and it solidified to me that I just didn’t really vibe with the tone of the movie as a whole…
To conclude, I came out of Oddity mostly excited about what Mc Carthy could have in the barrel for his next feature. Even though I have my issues with the pace, tone, storytelling, and narrative arc as a whole, there are some amazing sequences that would have worked so incredibly well in a different story. At least I think so. But who am I to say, I’m just a movie critic. Oddity won the Midnight Audience Award at South by Southwest, as well as the Audience Award at the Overlook Film Festival. Definitely an impressive festival circuit resume. Like I mentioned at the top of this review, Oddity definitely deserves its flowers for the technical achievement that it is in certain spots. It just simply lacks the jaw-on-the-floor, totally original story of higher-octane thrilling entertainment. Which is fine. I would still recommend Oddity to fans of the genre, as it is classy and worth seeing. It’s just a particular flavor that I’m really not in love with…
Wicked Horror Rating: 6.5/10
From IFC Films, Oddity will be released in theaters July 19th, 2024.
