Oddity review: "In a strong year for indie horror movies, this is one of the finest – and scariest"

Winner of the Midnight Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival and the recipient of ecstatic reviews, this genuinely frightening sophomore feature by Irish writer/director Damian McCarthy now lands on streaming platforms Shudder and AMC+.

Set largely in the same converted barn in County Cork that housed the sets of McCarthy’s creepy 2020 debut Caveat, Oddity works wonders with a small budget and a conventional narrative, using time shifts and sublimely crafted suspense sequences to rattle viewers.

It begins with the murder of Dani (Carolyn Bracken) as she renovates the house, then jumps to a year later, when Darcy (Bracken again) arrives uninvited to stay with her dead sister’s husband, Ted (Gwilym Lee), and his new girlfriend, Yana (Caroline Menton). Darcy is blind but claims to see what others can’t through psychic means, and has brought with her a traveling companion in the form of a large wooden man who sits with arms spread out and mouth stretched open in a silent scream.

The slowly revealed secrets behind Dani’s death likely won’t shock viewers, but the expert scares most certainly will. McCarthy needs only space and movement, blocking and cutting, to turn the screw – and some truly ominous sound design. Sitting in the middle of all this tension, unnerving in its stillness and quiet judgment, is that wooden figure. It’s a triumph of design, offering a creepy twist on such classic monsters as living dolls, the mummy and, in particular, the golem of Jewish folklore, a large clay figure that can be brought to life to do its creator’s bidding...

Oddity is available on AMC+ and Shudder from September 27.

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