Damian McCarthy may not yet be a director with a great deal of name recognition but it feels like he’s bound to become our next James Wan or Osgood Perkins. The Irish filmmaker’s latest movie Hokum looks like a terrifying ride starring Adam Scott (Severance). It’s undoubtedly going to put him on a lot of people’s radar. But before that (or perhaps after), it’s a great time to remind people that he made one of the scariest movies of recent memory, one you may well haven’t seen or even heard of.
See also: A Reason to Stay: Director Damian McCarthy on CAVEAT
The movie in question is 2024’s Oddity. Hailing from IFC and Shudder, it received a great deal of buzz following its debut at SXSW that year, eventually getting a theatrical release before arriving on streaming. Don’t get me wrong; quite a few people reading this may well be going, “Fuck yeah Oddity rules!” or something to that effect. It even won Best International Movie at the Chainsaw Awards. But it’s also one of those movies that couldn't quite break into the mainstream despite the buzz. I’m here to tell you that anyone in the market for a genuinely scary, original horror movie would do well to seek this one out.
McCarthy’s sophomore feature directorial effort focuses on a woman who is brutally murdered in a remote house she was renovating with her husband Ted (Gwilym Lee). A patient from the nearby mental institution where Ted happens to work is the primary suspect and the case is seemingly closed. However, the woman’s blind twin sister Darcy (Carolyn Bracken), a self-proclaimed psychic, is convinced there’s more to the story and brings cursed objects from her collection to Ted’s home in search of the truth.
Oddity is a movie that does a lot with relatively little. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel as some piece of “elevated” horror and it really only plays with a few locations. But McCarthy is the sort of filmmaker who makes the most out of the tools in his bag. He’s an expert at crafting tension, as well as using sound to his advantage. That leads to some shit-your-pants type scares. Not to spoil it, but what I’ll refer to as “the tent scene” is maybe one of the best scares I’ve ever come across, right up there with that scare from the rightfully adored Exorcist III. It’s that good.
McCarthy makes the house in the middle of nowhere scary as hell. He plays with the fact that Darcy is blind in such a way that it screws with the audience. He also manages to subvert expectations along the way. It’s not all obvious despite also not being some hyperbolic reinvention of the horror genre. It’s just a damn good, damn scary movie. It also features a terrifying mannequin that will haunt your dreams.
Something you hear a lot from more casual horror fans is, “Gee, there just aren’t any good, really scary movies anymore” or “That movie sucked! It wasn’t even scary!” The measure of great horror shouldn’t always be how scary it is, as that’s walling off a lot of great storytelling. That having been said, McCarthy is out here delivering the goods in the scary fucking movies department. Hokum appears to be another impressive addition to the director’s resume. For those up on his work, that makes him three for three.
Regular Fango readers probably know McCarthy's work. But there are far too many people out there who haven't taken in what he has to offer. For those who have perhaps slept on McCarthy’s filmography up to this point, this hidden supernatural gem is well worth seeking out. The cast is fantastic. The scares are top notch. It looks excellent and it even has just enough levity to make it more than just a punishingly terrifying test of endurance. For horror lovers, it really scratches an itch worth scratching.
Oddity is streaming now on Shudder in addition to being available on Blu-ray and DVD.
