Oddity (2024) Review by Phil Newton
Oddity (2024) Review by Phil Newton
Oddity opens with a pre-credits sequence set in creepy dark house secluded in a forest somewhere in a remote part of Ireland. Dani (Carolyn Bracken) is here renovating the property, sleeping in a big orange tent, while her husband Ted (Gwilym Lee) works late at the local mental hospital. After collecting something from her car there’s a knock at the door and a one-eyed man confronts her, desperate to warn Dani that there’s someone else in the house…
One year on and we discover that Dani was murdered that night, and the chief suspect – one our eyed-man – who was a patient of Ted’s has also just turned up dead. Ted pays a visit to Dani’s twin sister Darcy who runs Odella’s Oddities, a shop specialising in cursed artefacts. Imagine if the Warrens from The Conjuring films were selling their collection and you begin to get the picture. Darcy, who is also blind and claims to be psychic is delighted that Ted has brought her all that’s left of her sister’s likely killer, his glass eye.
Determined to solve Dani’s murder once and for all, Darcy invites herself over to the creepy dark house where Ted is now living with his new girlfriend Yana (Caroline Menton). She’s also brought some stuff with her, most notably a huge trunk that contains a naked screaming man carved out of wood. I mean, who brings a bottle of wine when you can have a lifesize Wooden Man? Darcy starts digging around and sure enough, secrets are slowly revealed which put everyone in danger.
If you enjoyed director Damian Mc Carthy’s previous feature Caveat then you should keep an eye out for a visual nod to his earlier film. Building on the early promise of his low budget debut, Oddity is an assured piece of work that really showcases Mc Carthy’s mastery of suspense and tension. There are some genuinely scares to enjoy here, and the aforementioned Wooden Man is a terrifying creation to have sitting at your dinner table. A little more fleshing out of the characters would have been welcomed, but performances across the board are solid, especially from Carolyn Bracken in her dual roles.
Hot on the heels of the DVD release of Speak No Evil which I reviewed last month, Oddity is the latest Shudder original title to get a home entertainment release courtesy of Acorn Media International, this time on both DVD and Blu-ray. Both formats feature a handful of extras including a Behind The Scenes feature with the cast & crew, and a Storyboard to Screen featurette. It’s a nicely presented release which comes highly recommended for horror aficionados.
