Oddity

When a stranger with a glass eye comes screaming to the door of your large house out in the country, saying that someone has got in and he has come to help, what would you do?

The question is moot as once the film’s titles have disappeared it’s obvious that Dani (Carolyn Bracken) has been murdered, her widower Ted (Gwilym Lee) now a year on has himself, moved on, and now dating Yana (Caroline Menton).

But Ted has the killer's glass eye which he takes to Dani’s twin sister Darcy (also played by Bracken) who has the gift of reading objects and their owners. Can she see something in the item that the authorities missed?

Ted is sceptical and is keener to take Yana to the now refurbished house, than discuss anything with Darcy. However Darcy unexpectedly turns up at the house with a gift, a family heirloom of a life size screaming wooden sculpted man. It follows that Darcy is not satisfied with the official outcome of her sister’s murder investigation and outcome.

Following on from his unsettling debut Caveat, writer and director Damian McCarthy, builds on the psychological elements of that to add ghosts and hauntings. Which he does very well setting up a general feeling of unease and dread in the house. While at the same time moving the plot forward.

And it’s with the plot that the film stumbles, a little, with the direction and protagonists being predictable, up to a point.

It’s in the technical areas of the sound and clinical set design of the house, that the film comes into its own. McCarthy making excellent use of space and shadow. This in turn enhances the psychological aspects as Yana begins to lose control of her wits and Darcy settles in.

Oddity is a classic slowburn with the odd shock, which relies on the developing menace. Its character lite; the viewer is provided with enough to maintain interest, though there’s arguably a more concentrated study of Ted whose intellectual arrogance and vanity smother his instincts, depriving him of useful curiosity.

Oddity will be available on Shudder from 27 September 2024.