"Oddity" - a movie review- Dustin Dopps Contributor
Photo Use Courtesy of Shudder
This movie is, dare I say it, an oddity. It isn't a normal horror movie. It isn't about a slasher or someone killing for pleasure or even nihilistic torture-porn, as our society seems to enjoy.
Instead, Oddity is a ghost story. Kind of. Mainly. But not fully.
It is a movie in the same line as "What Lies Beneath" or "The Devil's Backbone" or the like. It is the story of a great injustice that has caused so many ripples in the world that the only remedy is the supernatural. And I was there for it.
Oddity has some jump scares. Really good ones. They aren't the kind that are telegraphed through loud sounds or swelling music, rather they are the organic kind that come as part of the story and just make you feel ... uneasy.
The basic plot is this: a woman is helping her husband, a doctor at a mental institution, remodel an old home in the Irish countryside. In the first few scenes she is working on the home while her husband works night shifts, but then things go sideways.
A stranger shows up. A stranger with a glass eye. And he says, basically, "When you went to your car, I saw someone else sneak in to your house. You aren't safe. Let me in and I'll help."
But the stranger is someone we have seen before, and he is a patient at the husband's hospital, so what is really happening?
A new character is introduced - the twin sister of the main woman, who is blind, and who happens to own an antique shop full of cursed items. And she can help. Or not. Or she's part of things. Or something.
And that's the setup. Doctor and patients and wives and blind sisters and ghosts and death and scares.
The movie has two swear words, that I counted, and both are the f-word, which is used pretty liberally in Europe. So it isn't as much "vulgar" or "crass" as it is "normal" for the setting.
And there's an artifact made of wood. And a curse. And ghosts. And secrets. And it is just a very effective ghost story, really.
I thoroughly enjoyed "Oddity." It is odd. It isn't a normal 2024 horror film. But it is so, so much better than "Longlegs" that I have to give it some credit. The violence is mostly implied (if a bit bloody) and not too graphic.
I really enjoyed it. If you like gothic ghost stories or the two movies I mentioned at the beginning, give it a shot. It is quite effective. And atmospheric. And well-written. Things pay off at the end that were introduced at the beginning, and I like that intellectually.
I give it a solid A score. Also - don't watch the trailers. They give too much away.
