Well, it looks like Fantasia saved the best for last! We closed out the festival this year with Oddity, a new horror movie from writer-director Damian Mc Carthy (Caveat) that I’m hoping blows up as much as Longlegs did. It’s deserving of all the hype Longlegs had and then some.
I haven’t felt this much palpable tension and in-your-bones dread in a movie theatre since Skinamarink. But whereas that was an experimental Rorschach blot of a movie with little plot, Oddity is a genuine, old-school scary movie. I won’t spoil too many plot details, because I think you should try to go into this one as blind (pun intended) as possible. I’ll just say that the story involves a house, a murder, a blind medium who can commune with objects, and a creepy human-sized wooden doll (that is used to exquisite effect).
I’ll say it right off the bat: this is my favourite horror movie of the year so far and one of my favourite horror movies in recent memory. As a pretty seasoned horror viewer, I sometimes feel like a buzzkill when friends or people I know heap praise on new horror releases that often just don’t do it for me. But I can’t remember the last time I felt this enamored of a modern-day horror movie. I really just loved everything about it, from the excellent performances (especially from Carolyn Bracken) to the sound design to the narrative choices and structure to its unabashed oddness. It all just works.
Admittedly, I am a sucker for a supernatural horror story, and I love ghost stories in particular. I think they can be some of the most effective vehicles through which to not only scare the daylights out of people but also tickle the parts of our psyches that are rooted in the most primal instincts and emotions we have. A ghost story isn’t just cheap thrill or senseless gore—it’s a story, after all. And we are storytelling animals first and foremost.
The immediate touchstone for me here is Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor. No one understands the real and figurative power of a ghost story better than Flanagan. Watching Oddity, I felt a kinship between the film and Flanagan’s work in tone, atmosphere, and subject matter. But Oddity is also very much its own thing, and it feels like a breath of fresh air in today’s horror landscape.
The movie is supernatural and spooky in a way that feels reminiscent of the heyday of 2000s horror, but it’s also darker and weirder and still modern-feeling. And it’s very funny! There were so many moments that had our whole theatre laughing, but the most brilliant part was that none of the film’s dark humour detracted from the tension or scares.
Let’s talk about the scares, because I’m sure everyone wants to know just how scary this movie is. Obviously, this is highly subjective, but I felt genuinely on edge watching Oddity in a way that is rare for me. Part of that is that the movie makes masterful use of jump scares. While “jump scare” has become almost a dirty word among horror aficionados—connoting a cheap and easy way to scare an audience—there is nothing quite like the involuntary and visceral bodily reaction of fear that a well-executed jump scare can provide. Even being able to predict when or how they might happen here didn’t dilute their effectiveness.
It all comes down to execution, really. Mc Carthy does a phenomenal job of building up tension, then releasing it, in ways both expected and unexpected. In particular, the camera work, editing, and sound design all work incredibly well together to play on audience expectations and craft a sense of dread that lingers well after the movie has played its hand.
It’s that slow build up of anticipation that really gets to me. One of the scariest parts of Oddity, I think, is how it uses a supernatural lens to play on everyday fears. The idea of feeling unsafe in my own home, for example, is one of the most terrifying things imaginable to me. It’s why haunted house and home invasion stories are so effective. And it’s the kind of thing that plays on the imagination after you get home from a good horror movie—being afraid to turn out the lights and go to bed, thinking you’ve seen a figure looming at the end of a darkened hallway at night, not being able to sleep in your own bed.
These are the kinds of feelings that Oddity evokes. And it does so with just a handful of well-executed elements. A setting, a setup, props, music, camerawork—but Mc Carthy knows that the mind will finish the job and build up fear and anticipation and dread all on its own. This movie fully pulled me into its world and kept me on the edge of my seat. I think it’s exactly what I’ve been missing from horror for a while.
Verdict
Everything here is just executed to perfection. Right from the opening sequence, I knew we were in for a brilliant ride, and Oddity did not disappoint. But don’t take my word for it. Go and see Oddity for yourself, ideally in a cinema with a crowd, if possible! If you’re into oddities, ghost stories, and old-school supernatural horror with modern sensibilities and a dark sense of humour, you may fall in love with Oddity as much as we did.
Shout out, also, to the crowd at Fantasia, because nothing gets me more jazzed about cinema than hearing a room of people laugh, start, and even scream in unison. The crowd and the energy could not have been more perfect for this one, amplifying the tension and making the release all the more effective. What a phenomenal way to close out our very first (and most certainly not last) Fantasia Festival.
Shea Angus