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ODDITY (2024)
4 stars
Acorn Media international. Blu ray. 6th January
ODDITY is a creepy Irish horror, the sophomore effort from writer and director Damian McCarthy, after CAVEAT (2020), which I haven’t seen.
Dani (Carolyn Bracken) and her psychiatrist husband Ted (Gwilym Lee, who you may recognise from THE GREAT), are doing up a remote house in the country. In an excellent opening sequence, which immediately adds mystery to the proceedings, Dani is alone there and goes to her car to look for something. She returns to house and locks up, when there is banging on the door. Opening the slot in it to see who is there – which echoes the hatches used in her husband’s sanatorium to view the patients – she is greeted by a strange, agitated man (Tadgh Murphy) with a bizarre glass eye, who warns her that someone has entered her home. She is in danger he tells her, or is he actually more dangerous than the supposed intruder…?
We learn later that she has been brutally murdered and Olin, the man who tried to alert her, was blamed for the killing and is also now dead. A year later, Dani’s blind twin sister Darcy (also a played by Bracken), who runs a slightly strange antiques shop, and claims to be psychic, is visited by Ted and he vaguely invites her to come visit him and his new girlfriend Yana (Caroline Menton).
He is somewhat surprised when she unexpectedly turns up on his doorstep (well he did invite her) and even more shocked by the bizarre life sized wooden mannequin she has sent ahead of herself in a large crate. Darcy believes that Olin didn’t kill her sister and determines to find out who did. To say much more would be to spoil the chilling delights ahead, beautifully pitched by McCarthy, with excellent acting from the cast – especially Bracken. The cinematography by Colm Hogan adds to the atmosphere and the sound design by Aza Hand and the score by Richard G. Mitchell create a brooding sense of dread throughout. There are also several very effective jump scares, that don’t feel like cheats (as they so often do in horror movies). Gripping and creepy.
Steve Kirkham
EXTRAS
Storyboard to Screen Featurette. Storyboards by writer/director Damian McCarthy (3 mins)
Behind the Scenes with the Cast & Crew (4 mins)
The Making of the Wooden Mannequin Gallery
