On a winter night in the remote countryside of Ireland, Dani was getting ready for bed when she heard a strange noise coming from the other side of the door. Having just moved into this manor not long ago, the house she shared with her husband was still under construction and far from finished. For safety, she had set up a small tent in the kitchen, right across from the front door, to sleep in until everything was in order. Peering through the keyhole, Dani froze when she saw Olin—a patient from the mental institution where her husband worked—silently watching her. Before she could ask why he was there, Olin suddenly warned Dani to leave immediately because he saw someone else in the house with her. Shaken by his words, Dani reached out to unlock the door, and tragedy struck.
At first, everyone believed Olin was the one who murdered Dani, but is it really that simple? Not long after, Olin's dismembered body was found inside the hospital. The deeper we delve into this mystery, the more terrifying the revelations become. In this eerie atmosphere, one mistake leads to another. Something horribly wrong lurks nearby, a cold and ruthless presence watching us from the shadows.
Today, let’s follow psychic Darcy as she uncovers the mysterious death of her twin sister, Dani, and find out why Oddity has been hailed by critics as the horror film that will tear the viewer’s mind to shreds.
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Plot
Spoiler Alert: The following section will reveal the entire plot of the film. Please consider before reading.
Exactly one year after Dani's death, her husband Ted seeks out her twin sister. Using his connections, he manages to obtain Olin's glass eye from the police and gives it to his sister-in-law. Darcy, a psychic with the ability to perceive others' pasts by holding their personal belongings, doesn't feel relief upon learning the death of the supposed culprit. Instead, she is overwhelmed with grief as the true nature of the incident is revealed.
On the first anniversary of her sister's death, Darcy visits the house where her sister and Ted had planned to build a happy life together. However, she is not only greeted by Ted, but also by Yana—Ted’s new girlfriend, whom he met while working at the hospital. Yana, having recently moved in with Ted, can't shake off a constant sense of unease, often hearing strange noises around the house. Occasionally, she even catches glimpses of Dani’s shadow lurking in the dark.
Though things remain unexplained, Yana frequently opposes living in such a remote countryside and advises Ted to move back to the bustling and safer city. As a psychiatrist, Ted dismisses the idea of ghosts, confidently stating, “Everything can be explained by science.” He even mocks Darcy's psychic abilities during their occasional visits, scoffing at her self-proclaimed mediumship.
In truth, Darcy’s antique shop is where she collects and sells various items haunted by spirits or lingering souls. These could be anything from a doll sitting on a shelf to a tiny music box, or even a hotel service bell.
Ted mocked Darcy's beliefs until she appeared at his doorstep as an Uninvited Guest. Carrying a life-sized wooden puppet, Darcy slowly recounted its story to Yana, revealing the dark spiritual force lurking in the shadows, ready to strike at any moment. Forced to stay since she couldn’t find her keys and with Ted working a night shift, Yana quickly became terrified by Darcy's tale. It exposed the many strange details surrounding Dani's death and confirmed that Olin was right—someone had indeed been hiding in Dani's house the night she was murdered.
As eerie visions started to appear throughout the house, Yana fled in panic. It was from this point that the true secret behind Dani's death began to surface: Ted had been the mastermind behind the entire incident.
The Insane and the Sane
What makes Oddity special is the way it ties the character Ted from the beginning to the end of the film. At first, Ted appears as a smart, caring, charming man who loves his wife. Ted’s life revolves around mentally ill patients like Olin and those he considers mentally unstable, such as Darcy, who believes in superstitious, spiritual matters. To Ted, those are mostly nonsense, not worth paying attention to. He always tries to explain everything as scientifically as possible.
If a face appears in a photo, it must be due to overexposure. If you see the ghost of a dead person, it’s surely the result of exhaustion. However, very quickly, we begin to sense something is off about this man. First, there’s his overly playful teasing of Darcy about her work. One could excuse this by saying Ted is confident and arrogant. Even the fact that he quickly got a new girlfriend can be explained by saying Yana helped him a lot after Dani’s death. All of the explanations make sense, they are so logical—so logical that they seem almost too perfect, without a single flaw.
However, in life, when something is too perfect, it often feels fake. As a man who supposedly loved his wife, Ted didn’t even remember the first anniversary of her death and casually went to work. He even forgot about inviting Darcy over for the memorial. He orders Ivan, the hospital nurse who was directly involved in Dani’s murder, to punish and threaten Olin for escaping the hospital on the night of the crime. This makes us gradually lose trust in this man, especially when Ivan questions why Ted didn’t just divorce Dani but instead had him kill her. Ted calmly replies that he didn’t want to break Dani’s heart by telling her he had fallen in love with someone else. The deceit has eaten into Ted’s very core—in other words, Ted represents the type of person who appears respectable and proper on the outside but is rotten inside. As we initially feel sympathy for him, we gradually grow to hate him and wish for his punishment.
As mentioned, most of the people around Ted are seen as having signs of mental illness, or at least, that’s how he perceives them. It's no wonder that the sanest and most normal person in the film, Yana, quickly runs away and leaves Ted. Not only was she horrified by what happened that night, but deep down, Yana also realized there was something wrong with the doctor’s soul. On the other hand, most of the characters who were labeled as mentally ill, like Olin or Darcy, turn out to be remarkably sane and resilient.
Having overheard Ted and Ivan planning to kill Dani, Olin rushed to warn her. However, Dani didn’t believe what Olin said, which makes sense given the context—a woman living in an isolated place with no one around, and in the middle of the night, a mental patient with a record of attacking others knocks on her door. Naturally, no one would open the door for him. But perhaps the sincerity and desperation in Olin’s words made Dani waver, because after he left, Dani ran towards the door, searching for him in vain. Yet the tragedy still unfolded brutally and violently, just as it was destined to.
Humans and monsters
Like a challenge to the audience's patience, Oddity unfolds with a slow, suffocating pace. We constantly question the characters—who among them is trustworthy, who is telling the truth? Everything spins in dizzying circles. Ted initially appears charming and caring but quickly turns into a monster. Olin, with his frightening appearance, is actually kind-hearted, wanting to help others, while Darcy, with her unpleasant and creepy demeanor, ends up being the one we root for. This creates a moral and psychological dilemma: Are we judging someone too quickly based on their outward appearance, or do we simply need time to truly understand them?
Director Damian McCarthy seems to enjoy toying with the audience's minds. He throws us into a case that seems all too clear, only to make us wait over 40 minutes to realize we've been completely wrong. That rush to judgment comes at a cost, and Darcy is left to suffer. Soon after her sister’s death, Darcy uses her psychic powers to manipulate the wooden puppet, sending it after Olin, ultimately killing him. In a way, she also becomes a monster in the eyes of others, much like Ted. And as the film nears its end, Darcy’s death becomes inevitable. She has to die as a way to atone for her mistakes. But what about Ted? He’s no better. Sooner or later, that vicious cycle will catch up to him, and fortunately, it’s Darcy who will do the job herself. She sends Ted the haunted bell that he once mocked because she knows he will ignore her warnings. This time, Ted’s arrogance is his downfall.
As the central character of the film, Ted frequently listens to others, yet he never believes a word they say. If Ted ever realized someone was telling the truth, he would immediately manipulate and dismiss their point of view. Ted risks ringing the bell that Darcy warned was haunted by the hotel servant because he doesn’t believe in the supernatural, and he thinks he’s gotten away with his crime. Yes, Ted believes no one can punish him. But director McCarthy has other ideas. In an interview with The Direct, McCarthy said that if the film had gone on for just 40 seconds longer, we would have seen the ghost of the hotel servant tear Ted to pieces.
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The horror of the wooden puppet
The wooden puppet was an item brought to Ted’s house by Darcy. As introduced, we learn that the puppet originally belonged to the sisters’ mother. According to the customs in the place where Darcy and Dani grew up, when a couple reaches their 5th wedding anniversary, friends and family would gift them something made of wood as a blessing. That puppet was a gift from a witch to their family. The problem lies in the fact that it seems to always move whenever Yana isn’t paying attention. The first instance is when it suddenly sits at the table, despite Darcy confirming she hadn’t taken it out of the box. From Yana’s perspective, we can completely understand her discomfort. After all, aside from her, the only other person in the house was Darcy, and the idea that objects could move on their own sounds utterly absurd, if not downright illogical.
However, very soon, we notice something strange about the story. Being blind, how could Darcy possibly move that giant wooden puppet on her own? She even managed to place it neatly on the table in such a short amount of time. That is, until Yana was startled when she discovered the puppet’s head tilted upward, seemingly watching her as she stood on the second floor. This must have shocked her, causing her to drop her phone. With just two simple shots, director Damian McCarthy taps into the primal fear within all of us: the unsettling feeling that when we turn our backs, there may be soulless eyes quietly watching from behind.
With its stiff expression and mouth seemingly frozen in a scream of agony, the wooden puppet instills unease in anyone who dares approach or interact with it. Inspired by the Golem, a monster made of clay in Jewish folklore, Darcy’s wooden puppet acts as a tool to carry out her punishment and execution of the guilty. This explains why the psychiatric patient in the room next to Olin's at the beginning of the film was so terrified. He likely witnessed the puppet and its brutal methods of killing. The ambiguity surrounding the puppet’s origins and its methods creates a sense of dread, much like folklore about ancient forces or mysterious spells. The puppet's background is left unexplained, and even its creator, director McCarthy, emphasized that he didn't want to explain too much, as the less we know about a creature, the greater our fear becomes.
The King of horror films in 2024?
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that 2024 is a symphony of horror films. If Late Night with the Devil is a chilling late-night entertainment show, and Longlegs is like a love letter from a murderer to the corpses they see as works of art, then Oddity brings a completely different tone. At times, it’s like the relentless knocking on your door in the dead of night that makes you jump, and other times, it's the faint creak of a door slightly ajar in the dark, like a cold breeze brushing the back of your neck, leaving you with an eerie, lingering feeling. It’s not quite fear, but more of an unsettling anxiety. It makes you sit still, staring at the darkness behind the door, holding your breath in a silent, suffocating terror. That’s the feeling you get while watching Oddity, a direct contender for the horror crown of 2024, alongside Longlegs and Late Night with the Devil.
In recent years, horror films have stopped being frightening for many people. They claim they've seen too much and have become accustomed to the various scare tactics. Some also say that today's horror genre is living in the shadow of past masterpieces. To address this issue, Oddity offers a truly unique vision by approaching the familiar séance motif but adding a special flavor of ancient, primal fear—the fear of the dark. It's no wonder cinematographer Colm Hogan fully utilizes still shots of the darkness behind doors or the spaces untouched by light. In the faint glow of a flashlight, the silence creates a tense, static frame, as if someone has turned the volume down so low you can easily hear the creak of the door or the wind howling through the cracks. That eerie stillness clings to you, raising goosebumps on your skin and sending a chill down your spine. Just a moment's glance away from an object or painting makes the audience wonder if it's watching them. Truly, what you can't see can be just as terrifying as what you can see in the darkness of a pitch-black night.
Without needing a dilapidated house, damp hallways, gory bloodbaths, or monstrous creatures, Oddity brings us close to rough stone walls and art paintings bathed in soft, warm yellow light. Yet, within that cozy atmosphere lies streaks of fresh blood and invisible fear. Like a blunt knife carving jagged wounds into flesh, the film becomes living proof that a simple storyline without trying to force too much information or too many layers of meaning can still evoke horror. With just visual and auditory elements, the sweet allure of darkness is enough to bring a creeping sensation of something terrifying lurking out there. This vagueness gradually turns into unease, and from unease, it transforms into fear—slowly gripping you before you even realize it.
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