Oddity (Fantasia 2024)(Review)

A horror movie doesn’t necessarily need to be “scary” to be successful, and even then what gets under peoples’ skin is highly subjective. Describing a horror movie as “scary” can nonetheless imply its success in several areas at being able to frighten audiences, such as having a well-developed atmosphere or strong, compelling performances. I bring this up because at least once every year, a horror film on the festival circuit will be selected by pop-culture websites and movie press outlets to be deemed “the scariest movie of [insert year here]”. Sure, that phrasing can feel a little “clickbait-y”, and there’s more to appreciate about horror than how many times it can make you jump in your seat, but it’s a phenomenon that has enabled a whole bunch of cool, smaller-scale fright flicks to get their well-deserved time in the spotlight.

One notable film that received this treatment a couple of years back was a single-location indie chiller named Caveat (2020) – the feature debut of Irish writer-director Damian McCarthy which gained plenty of positive attention after it was deemed “the scariest movie of 2020 you haven’t seen” by several media outlets. Flash forward to the present day and McCarthy’s second feature, Oddity, is already outdoing its predecessor in terms of online buzz and social-media hype. Tales are already being told of terror in the aisles at preview screenings, giving the impression that Oddity is some kind of eldritch cognito-hazard that changes its viewers forever out of sheer fear.

I’ll confess that, even as someone who enjoyed Caveat and found it to be genuinely creepy, I remained cautious (and perhaps a little sceptical), regarding the hype surrounding Oddity. A whole lot of films are proudly proclaimed as “the scariest movie in years” by early reviewers, who claim them as evidence that “horror is back” when it never actually left in the first place. Having now seen Oddity, I’m delighted to be able to say that it’s a genuinely scary film, and furthermore, it’s a fun film too.

Oddity follows blind antique-store owner Darcy (Carolyn Bracken), a year after her twin sister Dani (also played by Bracken), was brutally murdered in her husband Ted’s (Gwilym Lee), spacious rural home. Though Darcy is unable to see through conventional means, she has a psychic gift that enables her to see an object’s history by touching it. When the man convicted for Dani’s murder, a one-eyed psychiatric patient named Olin (Tadhg Murphy), is found dead on the hospital ward where Ted works, he brings Darcy the dead man’s glass eye in the hopes that holding it will help bring her closure – even though Ted himself is a die-hard sceptic when it comes to the supernatural. Expecting to find answers as to why her sister was killed, Darcy instead discovers that Olin wasn’t responsible for her death – and that the real culprit is still out there. As a result, Darcy pays an unexpected visit to Ted and his new girlfriend Yana (Caroline Menton), at their home, planning to unmask the killer at the scene of the crime. Darcy hasn’t packed light for this visit though, and accompanying her is a grotesque, uncanny wooden mannequin – one with a grisly purpose known only to its owner.

A nightmare marriage of ‘70s-style hauntological countryside chills with a playful E.C. Comics-esque sense of ferocious, vengeful wit, Oddity manages to be a worthy follow-up to McCarthy’s debut whilst also being a curious little creep-show in its own right. This is the kind of film where you can predict a scare gag about a minute before it happens, but you’ll be left grinning with devilish glee for that whole minute once you realise what you might be about to see. Much of Oddity is comprised of a series of set-ups that, once introduced, will leave you anxiously excited for their inevitably horrific payoff, and the most prominent one of these is, of course, the aforementioned wooden dummy from hell – which could quite possibly be the freakiest mannequin to grace the silver screen since the skinless educational aid in Pin (1988). Sure, Oddity features enough accursed objects to send M. R. James’ ghost into a fit of hysterics, but it’s that glorious, humanoid monstrosity that will stick with you by the end of the film. McCarthy never lets the viewer forget the mannequin’s presence, and while it might remain stationary, there’s a constant creeping suggestion that the titular “oddity” is merely dormant rather than lifeless. There’s no questioning “if” the dummy will move, but a matter of “when”.

There’s more to Oddity than its fear factor as it’s got a wicked streak of black humour – not exactly in the sense that it’s full of jokes or laugh-out-loud funny, but in the playfulness of its execution, which is enough in itself to make audiences giggle with glee. Comparable at times to some of the tales of karmic supernatural justice found in the classic Amicus portmanteau films, Oddity aims above all to entertain, and even its most unpleasant moments are shot and edited as though they’re the punchline to some well-constructed macabre joke. Your mileage may vary in regards to how well some of the later punchlines land – particularly the final image, which leans hard towards comedy after ninety minutes of more balanced humour and horror, but any minor complaint I could have about Oddity wouldn’t remotely harm its sheer enjoyment value. Is it predictable? A lot of the time, yes. Is it just as fun here to anticipate what you already know is lurking behind the next corner? Absolutely.

Though it provides haunted-house-ride thrills, Oddity isn’t bereft of deeper thematic material, and one of its most pleasing elements is how it dispels myths and stereotypes surrounding disability in horror. A large number of genre films in decades past (and unfortunately still in this decade), have used disability and disfigurement as an indicator of monstrosity, but Oddity actively makes moves to fight ableist portrayals. Though Bracken isn’t blind in real life and also plays a non-visually-impaired character in the movie, she plays Darcy with undeniable agency and confidence – refusing to be belittled or pitied by those who, even unconsciously, see her impairment as something that makes her lesser. Darcy may have psychic powers, but McCarthy makes sure that viewers never doubt that she’s a human being, and treats comments throughout the film which equate disability to the paranormal or “unnatural” as ignorant and cruel. This movie holds the demonisation and dehumanisation of disability and mental illness in the horror genre to account, exposing the true ugliness that lies in the neurotypical, able-bodied world’s urge to pathologise and control those bodies and minds that are different to the norm.

Oddity is the kind of horror film that’s equally effective when watched with others or alone as it’s the kind of short, sweet, sinister 90-minute spook-fest that will induce plenty of nervous, wicked laughter, yet leave you scared to turn the hallway light off once it’s finished. Sometimes the absurd and unexplainable can join humour and horror hand-in-hand – and Oddity, wisely abiding by the traditional rules of a séance, never breaks the connection, offering a pleasing terror through-and-through.

Robyn’s Archive – Oddity (2024)