Being Film #24 for Hooptober 2024
We’re getting to the saturation point of reviewing. 24 reviews in 23 days. I’m beat, trying to get this wrapped up so I can take on the other writing stuff I’m putting off. Luckily, the films continue to show bright spots in the genre, perhaps none more so than Damien McCarthy’s sophomore feature Oddity, which was crafted at the same time as his great debut Caveat we covered in a past marathon. It takes the “Monkey’s Paw” approach with a wicked tale of deceit and murder, and just enough supernatural terror to be the legit first film to make me jump and scream in this marathon. I’ll take it.
THE QUICK SUMMARY: Dani and Ted Timmis just moved into their beautiful historic home in Ireland. When Ted is working the night shift at the mental hospital, Dani is home starting to renovate when there’s a knock on her door. It’s one of Dr. Timmis’s former patients, and he’s very distraught – he says someone snuck into the house there with her. Dani refuses to let him in….and she’s brutally murdered. A year later and Dani’s blind twin PSYCHIC sister Darcy shows up at the house with a mysterious wooden box. She’s says she’s there at Ted’s invite, to meet his new girlfriend Yana and present a gift of the terrifying looking wooden man in the box. Her true intentions? To find out who really killed her sister, and to exact revenge…
McCarthy nailed the tension and dread between people with small drips of the supernatural in Caveat, so I wasn’t afraid that would be lost here. Indeed, there’s even the glimmer of a shared universe here, as Darcy’s antique shop houses a number of occult objects, including the horrific rabbit toy from the first film. But that rabbit doesn’t hold a candle to how weird and otherworldly the wooden man is Darcy brings to Ted’s house. Its presence adds a level of tension to every conversation, as it sits there at the dining room table between Darcy and Yana, as Darcy explains her gift and her suspicions that Dani’s murder didn’t go down quite how it was explained to the police. Most of Oddity revolves around these conversations, as subtle clues and hints appear to flesh out the story. Carolyn Bracken does a great job differentiating between the twins she plays, and as warm and cozy as she makes Dani, she does the exact opposite as Darcy, pushing forward her aloofness, and her cold calculation.
The supporting cast is equally fantastic: Gwilym Lee plays Ted as a harried but loving husband, until those cracks begin to show and he’s revealed as something much different. Likewise Tadhg Murphy as Olin Boole, the escaped patient who comes to warn Dani of the danger she’s in. I just finished watching him in the reboot of Time Bandits where he was an absolute delight, and to see him here play something much more dangerous and haunted was a treat.
But the real star of Oddity is that wooden doll, painting a visual so unique I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. And it’s not even involved in the scene that made me jump and scream. THAT scene features Dani, a tent, and a camera that starts so innocently that when the scare arrived I was completely unprepared. Packaged together with a wicked “just desserts” ending I had a great time with Oddity, and can’t wait for whatever McCarthy does next.
Cinema Dual 
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