Oddity is a 2024 Irish horror film,[4] written and directed by Damian Mc Carthy, that centres on a blind medium and curio shopkeeper who is still grieving the death of her twin sister a year prior. A wooden mannequin from her cabinet of curiosities becomes crucial to her quest to uncover the truth about her sister's murder.
Oddity | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Damian Mc Carthy |
Written by | Damian Mc Carthy |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Colm Hogan |
Edited by | Brian Philip Davis |
Music by | Richard G. Mitchell |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Wildcard Distribution |
Release dates |
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Running time | 98 minutes[1] |
Country | Ireland |
Language | English |
Box office | $1.2 million[2][3] |
It premiered at South by Southwest on 8 March 2024, where it won the Audience Award in the Midnighter section of the festival. It is scheduled to be released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 30 August 2024.
Plot
editAlone one night, Dani, the wife of psychiatrist Ted Timmis, is brutally murdered while renovating the couple's newly acquired country house. Olin Boole, one of Ted's former patients, visited Dani that evening, warning her that a stranger had infiltrated the home. Olin is ultimately convicted of the crime, and is later found brutally murdered in his room in the psychiatric hospital.
One year later, Dani's twin sister Darcy, a blind clairvoyant with psychometric powers, is visited by Ted at her Cabinet of Curiosities shop in Cork, and the two make plans to visit again. Several days later, Darcy arrives unexpectedly at the country house where Ted now resides with his new girlfriend Yana, a pharmaceutical representative. Preceding Darcy's arrival is the shipment of a large crate containing a strange life-sized wooden mannequin. Ted departs to his night shift at the hospital, leaving Darcy alone with Yana, who wishes to leave but is prevented from doing so when her car keys vanish. Yana is frightened when she notices the mannequin inexplicably moving positions, and drops her cell phone from an upstairs landing, destroying it. Upon examining the mannequin, Yana finds several strange objects inside holes in its head, including photographs of Dani and Darcy, locks of hair, a tooth, and a vial of blood. After observing what appears to be Dani's apparition in the house, Yana panics and manages to flee after finding her car keys inside the crate the mannequin was transported in.
Ted returns to the house to find Darcy alone upstairs. Darcy reveals to Ted that she knows he was responsible for Dani's murder. She reveals that she killed Olin to avenge Dani, but, upon performing a psychometric reading of Olin's glass eye, she discovered he was in fact innocent. Rather, it was Ted who arranged Dani's murder, enlisting the help of Ivan, a brutish orderly at the psychiatric hospital. Olin overheard discussions between Ted and Ivan regarding the plan to kill Dani, and upon his planned release from the hospital, he arrived at the house that evening to warn Dani.
To prove his innocence, Ted tells Darcy he is going to meet with the investigator who presided over the case and have the investigator phone her to explain the evidence. Ted returns to the hospital and calls his cell phone. Darcy, unaware that Ted has removed a trap door cover on the floor near where he left the phone, goes to retrieve it and falls to the stone floor below. At Ted's command, Ivan visits the house to ensure Darcy's fate, only to be stalked and brutalized by the wooden mannequin, which Darcy appears to have supernaturally animated before she succumbed to her wounds.
Sometime later, Ivan, having survived the attack, is committed to the psychiatric hospital by Ted. To ensure that Ivan does not confess to Dani's murder, Ted sets free a violent cannibal in the hospital who brutally kills Ivan. Ted returns to the country house, where he now resides alone; Yana broke off their relationship, disturbed by Ted's nonchalance that both Dani and Darcy died in his home. On the doorstep, Ted finds a small box delivered from Darcy's oddities shop. Inside is a Call bell that Darcy had earlier shown him, which she indicated was haunted by the ghost of a bellhop who died in a local hotel and kills whoever rings it. Ted defiantly rings the bell, and momentarily observes his surroundings with no indication of the spirit. As Ted begins to relax, he is unaware of the bellhop's spirit standing behind him.
Cast
edit- Gwilym Lee as Ted Timmis[5]
- Carolyn Bracken as Dani Timmis / Darcy Odello[5]
- Tadhg Murphy as Olin Boole[5]
- Caroline Menton as Yana[5]
- Steve Wall as Ivan
- Jonathan French as Declan Barrett
Production
editThe film was shot in the same converted barn in County Cork, Ireland, as Mc Carthy's first film, Caveat. Mc Carthy was developing Oddity at the same time he was working on Caveat.[6]
Effects artist Paul McDonnell created the life-size wooden mannequin with input from Mc Carthy.[7] Mc Carthy cites films like Child's Play and Creepshow as influences. "I'm a big fan of those old 'doll comes to life' films," he said in 2024. "But they're always small, and I thought it would be cool to have one that's your size, that would be a force to reckon with if it did come alive."[6]
Mc Carthy, who frequently browses antique stores, acquired many of the props for the film himself.[6]
The character Olin Boole was the subject of Mc Carthy's 2013 short film How Olin Lost His Eye, which explores the character's backstory.[8]
Release
editIn February 2024, Blue Finch Films acquired the international distribution rights for the film.[9] The film premiered at South by Southwest on 8 March 2024.[6] It won the Audience Award in the Midnighter section of the festival.[10] It won the Audience Award for Feature Film at the Overlook Film Festival in April 2024.[11]
The film was released in the United States on 19 July 2024,[12] prior to playing at the 28th Fantasia International Film Festival on August 4, 2024.[13][14] It is set to be released by Wildcard Distribution in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 30 August 2024.[15]
Home media
editOddity was released on VOD on August 20, 2024, and is scheduled to be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 22, 2024.[16][17]
Reception
editCritical response
editOn the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 104 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "An elegant and spooky ghost story punctuated with clever jolts, Oddity hews to the fundamentals of fright and achieves shout-inducing results."[18] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 78 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[19]
Writing for RogerEbert.com, Sheila O'Malley praised the film and awarded with three and a half out of four stars calling it "unnerving and unsettling", noting: "I won't say more than this: the final frame is so perfect it exceeds expectations. The moment is a call-back, but it's also a glimpse of the future. It makes me wish I had seen "Oddity" in a packed midnight show. Mc Carthy does the hardest thing of all: he sticks the landing."[20]
References
edit- ^ "Oddity (15A)". Irish Film Classification Office. 22 July 2024. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
- ^ "Oddity". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 17 August 2024.
- ^ "Oddity – Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
- ^ https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/oddity-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0xmdizmtmz
- ^ a b c d Lowe, Justin (8 March 2024). "Oddity Review: Damian McCarthy's Supernatural Suspenser Casts an Unsettling Spell". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
- ^ a b c d Whittaker, Richard (8 March 2024). "The Horror of Found Things in Oddity". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
- ^ Vary, Adam B. (7 March 2024). "15 Buzzy SXSW Premieres: The Fall Guy, 3 Body Problem, Travis Kelce's Producing Debut and More". Variety. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
- ^ Puchko, Kristy (9 March 2024). "'Oddity' review: Your new horror obsession has arrived". Mashable. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
- ^ Ramachandran, Naman (12 February 2024). "SXSW-Bound Berlin EFM Supernatural Film 'Oddity' Boarded by Blue Finch Films (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
- ^ Zee, Michaela (13 March 2024). "'Bob Trevino Likes It', Monkey Man Lead SXSW Film & TV Festival Audience Awards". Variety. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
- ^ Zilko, Christian (11 April 2024). "Oddity Wins Audience Award for Best Feature at Overlook Film Festival (Complete Winners List)". IndieWire. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
- ^ T, Amber (5 June 2024). "Meet The Terrifying Mannequin Of Oddity In Today's New Trailer". Fangoria. Retrieved 7 June 2024.
- ^ "Oddity". Fantasia International Film Festival. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
- ^ Carson, Lexi (6 June 2024). "Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival Unveils 'Bookworm' Starring Elijah Wood as Opening Film, Plus Second Wave of Titles (Exclusive)". Variety. Archived from the original on 6 June 2024. Retrieved 7 June 2024.
- ^ "Wildcard to release Irish horror Oddity on August 30th". The Irish Film & Television Network. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
- ^ Lammers, Tim. "Acclaimed Horror Thriller Oddity Debuts On Digital Streaming This Week". "Forbes". Retrieved 19 August 2024.
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: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Horror film Oddity is getting a Blu-ray in October". "HighDefDiscNews". 14 August 2024. Retrieved 20 August 2024.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "Oddity". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ "Oddity". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 22 July 2024.
- ^ O'Malley, Sheila (19 July 2024). "Oddity". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 24 August 2024.