When it seems like horror is coasting on styles and ideas more than genuine frights these days, the aptly named Oddity appears. Creepiness flows like water in the second feature from Caveat director Damian Mc Carthy. And permitting no one upstages it before then, we very may well have this year’s scariest horror film.
In this slow-burning chiller, a psychiatrist named Ted (Gwilym Lee) is haunted by his late wife’s death. Her murder, to be more exact. A year ago, a stranger came off the street and killed Dani (Carolyn Bracken) in the couple’s own house. Dani’s twin sister Darcy (also played by Bracken), however, is not convinced this was the work of a former patient from Ted’s clinic. The blind oddity shopkeeper has gone to great lengths to prove someone else is responsible.
What quickly stands out about Oddity is its small sense of scale and universe. There are really only three settings in the film, with the house being the centerpiece. It’s a limited story in that sense, yet the lack of comings-and-goings keeps everything laser focused. Quite often the house and Ted’s employment, a psychiatric clinic, come across as sets for a theatre production. The former, especially, is presented to us in such an intimate but also cold way; never once does Ted and Dani’s isolated country house feel comfortable or lived in, despite its occupants. So by making the film’s central location so constantly off-putting, Oddity maintains a strong and unshakable quality of uneasiness. And that’s before the macabre mannequin even shows up.
Other horror filmmakers tend to overthink their scares, whereas Mc Carthy stays rather reasonable. His efforts here, simple as they may be, are still quite effective. Darcy gifting her former brother-in-law with the worst present imaginable — a life-sized, wooden mannequin with a permanent scream of horror etched on its face — is, at first, the work of twisted humor, but as night falls and Darcy’s plan hatches further, this doll becomes a constant source of heebie jeebies. And the fright gag of the object changing faces as fast as lightning strikes never grows old, either. The director is working with familiar tricks here, but they are nevertheless fun.
If there is any one thing that might knock a point or two off Oddity‘s score card, it would be the un-mysterious mystery at the heart of the film. Your a-ha moment will likely come before the second act. In all fairness, though, the film doesn’t seem all that concerned about preserving the ambiguity; enough clues were planted ahead of time. What matters is how Mc Carthy actually satisfies your expectations.
Channeling classic Hammer films as well as classic Tales from the Crypt stories, Oddity is old-fashioned in the best ways imaginable. It is well acted, deliberately paced, darkly funny, and genuinely eerie most of the time. Other filmmakers have given up on good scares, on account of how desensitized we have become. However, Oddity proves there is still an audience for films that want to scare the hell out of you.
Oddity screened at Fantasia Festival 2024. It is also now playing in select theaters.
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