‘Oddity’ Finds Lasting Scares in the Darkness

Much like the things that we find funny, the things that we find scary are among the most subjective in cinema. One person’s most terrifying movie sequence of the year is another’s ho-hum mediocrity, so take the following with the biggest grain of salt you have at your disposal. Oddity, the new chiller from writer/director Damian McCarthy, is the first film in a long, long time to have me on edge and second guessing my decision to watch with the lights off. The back half can’t quite live up to what comes before, but odds are you’ll be riding the high of those earlier scenes long after the end credits roll.

Dani (Carolyn Bracken) is spending the night alone at a remote country home that she’s renovating with her husband, Ted (Gwilym Lee). He’s in town working late, and her loneliness turns to fear when a straggly, one-eyed man comes to the door insisting he be let inside. Why? Because he saw someone else sneak in moments earlier, and he’s worried that she may fall victim to foul play. It’s an immediately terrifying situation and a terrifyingly impossible dilemma, and when we jump forward a full year it’s her now-widowed husband who let’s us know that she was brutally murdered that night. He’s seeing someone new and back living at the house, and when Dani’s twin, Darcy (also Bracken), a blind antiques dealer who’s maybe a little bit psychic, arrives at the house unannounced, she comes bearing gifts. One is a life-sized human figure, carved out of wood, hollowed out in the head, and undeniably creepy. The other is her belief that the man arrested for Dani’s murder was actually innocent.

The oddity of the title refers most directly to the human figure that spends the back half of the film sitting at the dining room table. Well, sitting, but occasionally seeming as if it’s changed position? As if it might very well be looking directly at various characters. As if it might have plans. It’s an undeniably unsettling prop that ultimately feels like something of a MacGuffin, and that’s neither a knock nor a negative here as the film’s real focus is on these characters. To that point, Oddity‘s first half is its most frightening as we get to know these people and endure some incredibly unnerving sequences before things settle down somewhat with revelations and more familiar beats in the back end.

Dani’s initial question, to let in someone you don’t know or trust to possibly help you, or to face the unknown alone in the dark shadows around you, is a nightmarish one to contemplate. The brightest of houses wouldn’t keep it from being unsettling, but McCarthy and cinematographer Colm Hogan ramp up the tension and scares considerably in a house without power and a layout ripe for terrors in the darkness. They make beautiful use of space and shadow, both in the house and in the frame. I watch a lot of horror films, and while I love “scares” I rarely feel them in my bones like I did watching Oddity in the dark of my own living room. The camerawork, the editing, the lighting, the production design, and Bracken’s performance in those early scenes — all of works to freeze character and audience alike in place, terrifyingly confident that someone or something is watching just beyond the reach of the light. It is the single most frightening sequence I’ve seen since 2008’s The Strangers.

Luckily, for those of you who won’t find it scary at all, the film works well beyond those initial scenes to deliver a compelling tale of ghostly revenge, sibling love, and blackly comic comeuppance. Bracken is fantastic in both roles, but she shines as the droll, grief-stricken Darcy letting her thoughts about Ted’s quick engagement and his new lover come trickling out at every opportunity. Both Lee and Caroline Menton, who plays Ted’s new squeeze, find a darkly fun rhythm with Bracken, trading barbs with abandon and talking around the elephant in the room. The elephant, of course, being that damn wooden figure that I’m pretty sure was sitting at the table before but is now standing by the hallway?

McCarthy and friends wrap up Oddity in a satisfying and smart manner even if feels more familiar than what came before, and it loses no points for those viewers who might find themselves slightly ahead of the curve. Seeing how things unfold is ultimately interesting, fun, and creepy, whether or not you know what’s coming, although you probably shouldn’t be all that confident, as even the film’s resident psychic doesn’t quite have it all figured out either. Instead, sit back and relax — if you can — and let McCarthy’s film take you on an enjoyably spooky ride.

The 28th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival runs July 18th to August 4th in beautiful Montreal, Quebec. Follow along with our coverage here.