Film review: Oddity is a busy film, blending a revenge thriller into psychological horror tropes

Oddity is a film by Bantry filmmaker Damian McCarthy

• Oddity
• ★★★☆☆
• Cinematic release

Irish psychological horror Oddity (15A) opens with Dani Timmins (Carolyn Bracken) being murdered by a patient who has escaped from the psychiatric hospital overseen by her husband Ted (Gwilym Lee).

Or so the official record states, but Dani’s sister Darcy (also played byCarolyn Bracken) begs to differ. A blind psychic with a strong connection to her dead sister, Darcy suspects foul play, especially when Ted finds himself a new girlfriend, Yana (Caroline Menton), within a year of Dani’s death.

And so Darcy invites herself along to Ted’s recently renovated home in the countryside, bringing a creepy, golem-like wooden figurine for company.

Written and directed by Damian McCarthy, Oddity is a busy film, blending a revenge thriller into its psychological horror tropes and contrasting Darcy’s inexplicable sixth sense for evil with Ted’s insistence that science and logic can explain everything that needs to be explained. 

Oddity blends a revenge thriller into psychological horror tropes

Gwilym Lee’s Ted is a deliciously squirrelly example of male privilege run riot and Carolyn Bracken is a striking presence at the heart of the story, even if her ethereal Darcy isn’t fully convincing; far more persuasive is Caroline Menton’s Yana, who delivers a refreshing blast of thoroughly modern cynicism amidst the spooky game of cat-and-mouse.