Oddity review.
Oddity brings us a healthy mix of ghost story and revenge thriller that sticks the landing on both.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Oddity
Directed by Damian Mc Carthy
Written by Damian Mc Carthy
Starring Gwilym Lee, Carolyn Bracken, Tadhg Murphy, Caroline Menton, Steve Wall, Johnny French and Joe Rooney
Oddity Review
It wasn’t all that long ago that worries about the future of the horror-centric streaming service Shudder felt entirely warranted. Following a massive cost cutting effort…fans of The Last Drive In became concerned about the future of the hit show. I wrote at the time why those worries were directed at the wrong aspect of the streamer’s future. The Last Drive In has since been renewed and seen a format change. You can argue the merits of that change…but the show continues to deliver Joe Bob and Darcy fun.
What was more concerning about Shudder’s future is the number of fresh, original titles arriving on the service. They’d seen a marked decrease after the cost-cutting took hold. The pressure to maintain an impressive bang for your buck fell squarely on the quality of said content. At the time…there were many warning signs. The last several months have definitively answered those questions and quelled any lingering fears. Shudder is officially on fire.
Oddity won’t hit Shudder for a while. You have to head to your local cinema for the time being. It’s the latest proof that Shudder is in good hands once again…even if there are less fingers holding it up at this point. Late Night with the Devil sits firmly in position to make a mark in this year’s various horror awards. Stopmotion, Infested and You’ll Never Find Me aren’t far behind it. Nicolas Cage’s fun alien horror feature Arcadian just hit the service. New installments of the Hell House LLC and V/H/S franchises were recently announced. Joe Bob now talks us through horror classics every other Friday night. There are plenty of reasons to like what Shudder is bringing to the table. Though a place for Oddity won’t be set for a few months…it will provide another one.
Oddity is a ghost story. It’s also a revenge story. It’s even a little bit of a whodunnit. The first two things work in harmony to create an effective and fresh horror film. The last one provides moments of intrigue as the story unfolds. Once every piece of information you need is finally laid out…you won’t have any trouble figuring out what happened. That knowledge only helps the story kick into another gear of fun and surprising moments.
If you’ve seen anything about Oddity at all…there’s no doubt it’s the wooden entity pictured above this review. He’s less of an antagonist and more of a Chekhov’s gun. A strange item placed in the center of a seemingly haunted house early on. If you know what Chekov’s gun is…then you know it won’t sit idly by forever. What is surprising, however, is how little the wooden man has to do with the plot of Oddity. In fact, there’s a lot more to this story than initially meets the eye.
It opens with Dani (Carolyn Bracken) alone in a big, isolated house. Her husband is a doctor who works in town…and one of his former patients has come to knock on Dani’s door. He tells her that someone is inside her home and that she is in grave danger. He begs her to open the door to let him in. We won’t find out what transpired that night for a while. The main story takes place nearly a year later with Dani dead and her identical twin sister Darcy (Carolyn Bracken) entering the narrative.
Darcy has the ability to see hidden truths while touching personal artifacts. Dani’s widower Ted (Gwilym Lee) brings her a very personal item of the patient believed to have murdered his wife. She becomes convinced that the man didn’t kill her sister. To make matters worse…Ted’s new girlfriend Yana (Caroline Menton) has begun seeing the ghostly images of his late wife around the house. Her attempts to leave are thwarted by the surprise arrival of Darcy…and her strange wooden man.
Oddity does horror imagery very well. There are some genuinely frightening moments that don’t all involve a seemingly lifeless wooden man. It also boasts a slew of excellent performances. There’s a key piece of information that is withheld from us for a long time. A character arrives in the narrative that makes all of the pieces fall into place before the story is ready to reveal its secrets. It doesn’t matter if you can see what’s happened before Oddity reveals it. You probably still won’t see where it is going.
Some of the early pacing is a bit on the slow side. Darcy is an interesting enough character to pick things up completely once she arrives on the scene. Bracken gives an outstanding performance in the role. It’s amplified further given how different her role as Dani is by comparison. Oddity has some fun secrets to offset its more predictable ones. Even the ones you may see coming are accompanied by surprising moments. Oddity mixes together a ghost story, a revenge thriller and a whodunnit to elevate each to a higher rate of effectiveness. It’s a must see when it arrives on Shudder later this year. It’s also worth driving to your local theater for.
Scare Value
Shudder’s great year rolls on with another very good original offering. Oddity mixes a haunted house with a revenge story and enhances both sides of the equation. You’ll have to wait a while for the movie to make its way to Shudder…but it is well worth watching in theaters. You’ll be able to solve the puzzle once all of the pieces are laid on the table…but that doesn’t dull the effectiveness of each piece added to it.
4/5
Oddity Link
In theaters now – Fandango
