Damian Mc Carthy’s chilling Irish horror film blends eerie folklore with modern dread
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Written and directed by Damian Mc Carthy, the modern-day Irish fright film “Oddity” takes place at the intersection of horrific crime story and supernatural folk tale. In nerve-rattling opening scenes, a woman photographer with chestnut tresses named Dani (a remarkable Carolyn Bracken in a dual role) faces a terrible choice. Alone in an oddly-constructed, old, stone dwelling in the woods, she is confronted by a young man with a glass eye at her door. The inside of the structure combines ground floor, wooden walkways, and stairs. There is a tent inside. The man, who seems disturbed, insists that someone has sneaked into the woman’s home when she went out to her car and is locked inside with her. The man outside wants to come in to help her search for the “other.” She refuses to her regret, although we have to wait to find out what happens.
Sometime later (time is ripped asunder by the film’s editor), her husband, Dr. Ted Timmis (Gwilym Lee, “Bohemian Rhapsody”), who works at a psychiatric hospital near his and his late wife’s home, has moved on with an acquaintance named Yana (Caroline Menton). But after he encounters his dead wife’s twin sister Darcy Odello (Bracken with a short platinum ‘do), who is blind, things become complicated.
Darcy is the owner and operator of a strange antique shop in which, according to her, “everything is cursed.” The curses are lifted when someone purchases an item. Stolen things have a way of being returned, she claims. One of the items in the shop, Odello’s Oddities (shades of the Warrens’ Occult Museum in the “Conjuring” films), is a hotel’s antique front desk bell. According to Darcy, in a bit recalling last year’s sleeper hit “Talk to Me,” if you ring the bell, you summon the demon ghost of the hotel’s long-dead bellboy. Another item on the shelves resembles the mechanical drumming rabbit from Mc Carthy’s similarly spooky feature debut “Caveat” (2020).
Before long, Darcy will bring a life-sized, wooden mannequin, said to be “the witch’s gift,” perhaps because it resembles a body that has been burned to death, to Ted’s home in the woods. Images captured by Dani’s camera play an essential role in the film’s frissons. It’s not hard to perceive this as a metaphor for the film itself. Darcy, a medium, also has a “second sight.”
Likewise playing a role in the story is that glass eye, something else involving seeing. “Oddity” has the look and feel of one of those 1970s-era horror films from Amicus. You just know that Peter Cushing is loitering behind a bush. Someone in the hospital, perhaps an inmate named Olin Boole (Tadhg Murphy), has been making extremely disturbing drawings, one of which resembles the “gift.” (Olin is also the subject of a 2013 short by Mc Carthy titled “How Olin Lost His Eye.”) At other times, “Oddity” recalls the work of Italian maestro Mario Bava (“Black Sunday,” “Black Sabbath”).
In another frightening moment, the corpse-like ghost of Dani, perhaps summoned by her camera, warns Yana to “Run.” Wisely, she does. “Oddity” joins “Boys from County Hell” (2020), “You Are Not My Mother” (2021), and “The Hole in the Ground” (2019), if not “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022), in a wave of neo-Gothic Irish horror. Framed by dual Brackens, the film’s Irish cast is excellent. Richard G. Mitchell of Mc Carthy’s well-received feature debut “Caveat” (2020) delivers another jumpy score. Now that you’ve seen Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe in “Longlegs,” see Bracken and company in “Oddity.” In the end, a package arrives. Can you guess where it’s from? Run.
‘Oddity’
Rating: R for some bloody images/gore and language.
Cast: Gwilym Lee, Carolyn Bracken, Tadhg Murphy
Director/writer: Damian Mc Carthy
Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Where to Watch: AMC Boston Common, AMC Causeway, AMC Assembly Row and other suburban theaters.
Grade: B+
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