Oddity (2024)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Oddity (2024) – D. McCarthy

Irish director Damian McCarthy’s second feature is one of those horror films that I’ve been seeking, the kind with an emphasis on spooky supernatural events that don’t involve a surplus of blood and gore.  Any violence happens off-screen (although there is the occasional after-effect shown).  Instead, we are treated to the foreboding chilling (and gently teasing) suspenseful feeling that a jump-scare could be coming – or worse, the revelation that there are evil or malevolent forces that can reach us from beyond the grave (or elsewhere).  In this case, those malevolent forces might, thankfully, only target those who deserve their wrath.  The film opens with what turns out to be a flashback – Dani Odello-Timmis, wife of Dr Ted Timmis (a doctor in a psychiatric clinic; played by Gwilym Lee), is alone in their unfurnished stone house in an isolated part of Ireland.  An ex-patient of Dr Timmis knocks on the door to warn her that a stranger is in the house and she should let him in to assist.  Fast forward one year and it turns out that Dani was killed.  Her blind and psychic twin sister, Darcy (also played by Carolyn Bracken), who runs an antique shop full of cursed and haunted objects, believes that Dani’s death was not as straightforward as it appeared to be.  Things come to a head when she arrives to spend the night at the house with an ominous wooden golem, much to the chagrin of Dr Timmis and his new girlfriend.  This film gave me the creeps in more than one spot and the ending is pretty much perfect, although perhaps making the film just a little too tidy (for a supernatural thriller).