What drew me to Oddity was not only the buzz among horror fans, but the proclamation that it’s the “Scariest film of the year” by those that have witnessed the murder mystery supernatural hybrid. While the film definitely has a handle on the sort of haunted house jump scares that you’d expect. What I found really surprising was the film’s clever whodunnit embedded within the narrative, which enables the scares as well as vesting the viewer in this spook show amusement park ride of a film.
Oddity takes place one year after the brutal death of Dani Timmis (Carolyn Bracken). Who while working late one night renovating her home alone, was beaten to death by a patient who was just released from the mental asylum that her husband (Gwilym Lee) works nights as a psychiatrist at. It’s on that day her blind twin sister Darcy (Also, Carolyn Bracken) shows up at her home with a strange human sized wooden figure. Darcy may be blind, but she is blessed with the ability to “read objects”. This basically allows her to read to individuals through the objects they own, and she plans to use this power to unravel her sister’s murder once and for all.
The performances here, while leaning a bit into the melodramatic, work to further the film’s big swings that never seemed to miss. Carolyn Bracken doing dual duty as not only the outgoing sister Dani, but her goth equivalent Darcy, was a fun way to mix things up, and both characters felt different enough that it worked for me. Gwilym Lee also manages to do something a bit unexpected with his role as a man rooted firmly in science, and who never budges an inch the whole film, no matter what he witnesses. This is actually way more believable than some moment of forced realization we tend to get in these films. These performances, thanks to a solid script and a keen eye for genre from writer/director Damian Mc Carthy manifested itself in a profoundly effective horror work that genuinely impressed me.
Bringing to mind the Amicus horror films of old, Oddity deals out an old school horror crowd pleaser that is undeniably as scary as they come. Sure your mileage may vary on the “Scariest film of the year” claim. But that’s such an objectively loaded statement, since what may be scary to the average cinephile, may not have any effect on horror veterans like me. I will say the film did get me more than once, and that’s not easy mind you. I was also giving the film my total attention in a darkened theater, letting it work its magic. Simply put, I had a lot of fun with the way the film sort of slowly unravels this mystery before the viewer, using various genre techniques to great effect until we get to the denuma, that still leaves a few more loose ends to tie up.
