Oddity

The aptly-titled Oddity is a fiendish and disturbing horror movie written and directed by Damian McCarthy (Caveat). Alone one night in the Irish country house she and her husband Ted are renovating, Dani (Carolyn Bracken — also in You Are Not My Mother) answers a knock on the door from Olin, one of her husband’s recently-released psychiatric patients. He tells her he saw a suspicious man sneak into her house. Dani refuses to let him in, fearing a trick, but later than night she is brutally murdered. A year later, Dani’s blind twin sister Darcy pays a visit to her the widower and his new girlfriend, and delivers a very unusual gift…

Cleverly structured and impressively shot, Oddity breathes fresh life into several traditional horror movie staples. As for the surprise package, it’s like something out of an HP Lovecraft tale.

Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud to put his name on this lean and unsettling thriller, and it’s a triumph for its relatively new writer-director, Ireland’s Damian McCarthy.

Kyle Smith, Wall Street Journal

This carefully controlled and pointedly shot film takes a hoary old set of staples and cobbles together something admirably original.

Phil Hoad, The Guardian

A ferociously entertaining, beautifully orchestrated thrill ride that’s exactly the kind of horror movie you want to watch with a crowd.

Matthew Jackson, AV Club

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