MIFF Session #11: ODDITY

A woman, alone in a house in the country, is startled by a knock at the door. The man visible through the hatch has a weird prosthetic eye but tries to tell her that he saw someone come in while she was outside at the car. He reveals that he was once one of her husband's psychiatric patients. He tries to convince her by agreeing that she should call the police but the phone signal is bad. Will she be convinced? Her husband goes to a shop in town called Othello's oddities, run by his sister in law who is blind. Before she recognises his voice she tells him that all the objects in the shop of curios are cursed. The maledictions are lifted at point of purchase and shop lifters return the items after runs of bad luck. Their conversation and a phone call reveal a time shift. It's going to be that kind of movie.

Well, yes and no. There's a lot you can get into, describing this movie - I've just deleted three paragraphs of references obscure and wanky. While it is like Peter Strickland reimagining a chapter from an old Amicus anthology, if you don't click with any of that you will have stopped reading before you read this. What you really need to know about this movie is that is good. As a thriller with twists, turns and revenge subplots, it works with the best of them. As a thriller by the man who brought the unsettling Caveat, Oddity is surprisingly straightforward, for all its timeline shifting, and delivers on all its promises.

Writer/director Damian Mc Carthy (he uses that gap in the spelling of his name) has brought all the compelling atmosphere and looks of Caveat with its diseased fairytale house art direction into a story simple enough to withstand some tough ruptures here and there and bounce back up to serve its audiences. A jump scare builds to violence but then at the climactic music cue flashes to the results of the violence without needing to show the act, itself a violent moment, both heavily arthouse and narratively effective. The near constant electronic score keeps things solid with deep drones and mounting waves of dissonance.

The small cast is mostly Irish but Gwilym Lee (a superb Brian May in Bohemian Rhapsody) is the cold English centre as the doctor, his pulse almost visibly under control as he meets setbacks or sudden fortune. Carolyn Bracken plays twins Dani and Darcy so individually it almost backfires as you watch and work out if it's the same actor. Steve Wall's quiet confidence fleshes out as sadism profoundly enough to be wary of his every appearance. Caroline Menton sustains her thankless role as the difficult girlfriend Yana. 

Mc Carthy has gone from a promise of an individuality no longer widely applauded to a more conventional vehicle that retains the character of his debut. My hope is only that he continues to find strength and explore further the means for a career without submission to mainstream smoothing. You just hope some film talents never compromise.