Damian Mc Carthy’s Oddity curses curios for cat-and-mouse revenge

Caroline Menton and Carolyn Bracken on Damian Mc Carthy’s Oddity. // Photo from Colm Hogan/IFC Films and Shudder

In May of 2021, I reviewed Caveat, the debut feature from an Irish horror film writer/director that featured one of the most disturbing haunted dolls the cinema has ever captured. The disturbed little rabbit toy and its trademark cymbals were merely icing on the cake of a much more tormenting, personal game of cat-and-mouse. The indelible mark it left on my psyche led me to declare Caveat as an early contender for best debut flick of the year and certainly on the mark for Top 5 of 2021 overall. That early summer evaluation held true through the rest of the calendar, as nothing got under my skin quite like this diabolical number.

Mc Carthy’s follow-up film captures much of the same magic, albeit it in mainline manners that trim off some of the mystery and the jagged edges that gave Caveat such destructive power.

Oddity starts with an extended showdown between a woman (Carolyn Bracken) occupying a gigantic mansion and a strange man who pounds on her door in the middle of the night. The stranger insists that a murderer is in the shadows of her home, and she should let him in for protection. The back and forth ends poorly for the stranded female.

Jumping forward a year, the dead woman’s psychiatrist husband Ted (Gwilym Lee), pays a visit to his sister-in-law Darcy (also played by Bracken)—a blind medium who owns an antique shop. To prevent theft, everything in her shop is cursed. Yes, we’re almost immediately getting into Needful Things territory and no, I’ll never have a problem with yet another haunted shop film. [The grotesque rabbit from Caveat is part of Darcy’s collection—implying an extended Mc Carthy Evil Antiquing Universe that the Irish film production world should absolutely dedicate the next few years toward realizing.]

Ted has moved on (perhaps too quickly, wink nudge) and now cohabitates with new fianceé Yana (Caroline Menton)—in the same castle-ish complex his wife was murdered within. To the doctor of psychiatry, this is all just completely normal, as is hiring or dating from the mental health ward that he oversees. Darcy shows up unannounced at the cozy couple’s house of horrors, bringing a pal in the form of a creeptastic wooden man. If Ted can pretend that awful things are just ho-hum, so can his extended family.

What follows is a constantly shifting perspective of character across a spectrum of the horror genre. At one point, stalker Boogeyman, at other points, cross-examination thriller, occasionally found footage of terror, and even spectral love and transcendence. All of that is balanced against points that tap dance around some Stuart Gordon influence or harken back to hayday of weird haunted dolls being at the forefront of worlds like Chucky. If anything, the film proves that Mc Carthy has a keen eye and is perhaps the best in the biz right now at shooting a dark hallway and playing it for unbeatable tension.

Oddity is now playing in theaters, and will stream on Shudder at a date to be announced.

Oddity. // Photo from Colm Hogan/IFC Films and Shudder