Directed By Damian Mc Carthy

Starring – Carolyn Bracken, Gwilym Lee, Tadhg Murphy

The Plot – When Dani (Bracken) is brutally murdered at the remote country house that she and her husband Ted (Lee) are renovating, everyone suspects a patient from the local mental health institution, where Ted is a doctor. However, soon after the tragic killing, the suspect is found dead. A year later, Dani’s blind twin sister Darcy (Also Bracken), a self-proclaimed psychic and collector of cursed items, pays an unexpected visit to Ted and his new girlfriend, Yana (Caroline Menton). Convinced that there was more to her sister’s murder than people know, Darcy has brought with her the most dangerous items from her cursed collection to help her exact revenge.

Rated R for some bloody images/gore and adult language.

ODDITY | Official Trailer | Shudder – YouTube

POSITIVES

Take little stock in the plot synopsis, because while it is an accurate depiction of the movie’s general structure, there’s much more than meets the eye to Mc Carthy’s long awaited follow-up to 2020’s ‘Caveat’, with a deeply personal plunge into familial grief that manifests some dark and unsettling realities to those remorsefully left behind. For starters, the surprises every act keep the audience maintained throughout the depths of its slowburn storytelling, crafting many different dimensions to the dynamics and circumstances between characters, which we initially interpret at face value, before pulling the curtain back at sporadic moments throughout the lineal timeline of the past tense storytelling. It’s not always perfect, such as a third act exposition dump that does begin to get a little long-winded, but these delves into the past help to uncover motives and meanings to what is conjured at the forefront of the current day setting, taking initially scattered images and giving them clarity at the times when their impacts can be felt the loudest. In addition, Mc Carthy balances unshakeable atmospheric ambiance and jump scares, respectively, with each maintaining artistic integrity to the way they’re used accordingly to this mostly two stage setting. For readers of mine, praise towards jump scares is a rarity, but here they’re used in ways that are effectively jolting, as a result of razor sharp editing and proximity to the character focused in framing, keeping audiences on the edge of their seats through tensely riveting sequences, all without overdoing their dependency in constant repetition. As for the aforementioned atmosphere, Mc Carthy balances the ominous dread of a dark and isolated setting with the overwhelming burden of unfinished business from those survivors left with the unfortunate task of piecing together the mystery at hand, and while some stunning cinematography from Colm Hogan does do some of the heavy lifting with these intentionally drab color tones and long, lingering shots into the many dark corridors and shadows lingering in the distance, there’s an undefined X-factor persisting in the air that initially feels like a ghost story, before transitioning into something much deeper and grotesque, tapping into the materializing of real life feelings and emotions that are universal, but ideally in the souls of twin sisters, who initially reveal a connection between them, but without any of the intel for how psychological such a bond between them actually goes, until truths between outsider characters inscribe a point of no return for the surviving Darcy, whose psychic abilities always keeps her one step ahead of the power struggle that she faces in interrogation. This sets many deserving eyes on a two-for-one performance from Carolyn Bracken, who as these twin sisters commands many unique differences that legitimately makes them feel like two different people, but this obscured but connected link that makes it difficult for Darcy to simply walk away from the truth that is ringing in her ears. When Bracken plays Dani, she’s every bit vulnerable as she is naive to the situations and circumstances surrounding her, but as Darcy, her fearlessness and cunning intellect come to define an intimidating influence over those she comes into contact with, enabling a feeling of distrust and transparency to deeds done in the dark, but eventually brought to light in the most humbling of methods. Because Bracken defines each of her portrayals so firmly and tangibly to the integrity of the scenes that both Dani and Darcy accompany, it’s effortless to obscure the constant reminder of this performance being portrayed by one actress, with meaningful production values in costume and wardrobe diversifying a physical difference, yet nuance, personality, and even vocal inflections brandishing an emotional one, resulting in Bracken being a one woman firestorm, despite her receiving help from a group of supporting actors, all who each make the most of their limited screen time. Lastly, I wanted to shoot some praise over to the production values, mainly the sound mixing and score, which each imbed such an atmospheric articulacy to the nightmarish realities that its characters are faced with. Between absorbing definition of exterior winds and interior creaks of various floorboards, the direction peaks our interests with audible tangibility that alludes to the idea that anyone established as alone is very rarely realized as such, and when combined with Richard G. Mitchell’s pulsing and beating compositions, scenes might spike during moments of physicality, but their urgency remains consistent throughout the 93 minute engagement, serving as the atmospheric heartbeat to both the isolation and vulnerability factors that influence so much of the movie’s dark and psychological subconsciousness.

NEGATIVES

While I found most of the movie a refreshing experience for what I particularly look for in a horror movie, some key lapses in judgment occasionally took away some of the positive returns to the film’s creativity, mainly the abrasiveness of its storytelling device, and a conflicting resolution, which leaves ‘Oddity’ a bit underwhelmed by how deep the story possibly could’ve taken us. On the former, I do think that the spontaneous flashbacks uncovering a character’s motivation or insight into a particular conflict is revealed in ways that contribute meaning and importance to the film’s imagery, I just think that by the third act climax it resorts back into conventional methods of its reveals, feeling like one long-winded delivery that not only halted progress on the movie in the foreground of timelines, but also delivered more heavy handedly than those of the movie’s first hour, which required a deeper focus from the audience to summon those answers that they had been looking for. Perhaps it even flashes back a bit too often, making the film feel like its most important scenes persist in the past, with only its payoff being materialized in the present day. That brings me to the movie’s climax and ensuing resolution, as it does dispose of one conflict wonderfully in ways that I viewed as poetic justice, while another abruptly concludes without a satisfying payoff that the audience gets to experience. While I understand the open ended intention is to outline the inevitability of dread that hangs over the movie’s sole survivor moving forward, I feel like this is one example where the audience should’ve been privy towards seeing just where they end up, especially in them being such a key contributor to the movie’s initial opening set-up, which puts the motions to movement with so much of the script’s direction. Some people will appreciate the ambiguity of its closing moments, especially with so much of the movie’s gore factors being elicited with an aftershock appeal to the editing, but this was one example where I truly feel that Mc Carthy should’ve emphatically indulged in his ferocity and intensity, especially considering the film persists for another ten minutes after what could’ve been a satisfying enough ending to the movie’s duration.

OVERALL
‘Oddity’ is a moodily atmospheric thrill ride from Damian Mc Carthy, who enacts a supernatural spell on the aspects of closure-seeking grief, and those involved in such. With palpable scares in everything from thick fog-like atmosphere and effective jump scares, as well as one mesmerizing twin performance from Carolyn Bracken, the film represents the mature and evolved side to horror that we rarely get in the mainstream eye, and even with a conflicting resolution that won’t send audiences home unanimously happy, this is never the less an unsettling late-night trip into trauma that deserves to be watched with all of the lights off.

My Grade: 7/10 or B-