FROM THE ORIGINAL CINEMASTERS ARCHIVE
Oddity
This movie is a late add due to the Shudder subscription on Amazon Prime. I went back and forth on it initially. After actually catching the trailer for it, I decided I should give it a chance. I didn’t want to drop down off the production high that Longlegs really presented. It was a quality, well made film and to transition off that into something like Attack of the Killer Donuts or something seemed like too far of a fall to sustain. So I figured at the very least this film could be a stairstep down if it turned out to be no good. I appreciated that the trailer was at least well rendered. It didn’t give away everything but did present the narrative in a genuinely creepy fashion. The premise from the get go seemed eerie and it’s that sort of nagging tension that I really find most appealing this time of year. So I decided to fire it up and take the plunge on another somewhat artsy horror flick this Halloween.
The story in the film was backed up by the trailer. I tend to be all or nothing when it comes to trailers. Not very often do I find myself in a middle ground where I’m unsure if I’ve been sold on the film or not. I know not every trailer is just black and white like that but more often than not it either drives up the energy or feels like an immediate pass. From the trailer to the end credits, this movie was a pretty easy sell. What was nice is there was just enough to entice and let the story play out in the actual movie. One pitfall I will say that can exist in the modern trailer era is that they can give away too much information. It’s a fine line to walk but Oddity does so quite well. Once my curiosity was piqued, it was easy to settle in for the feature presentation.
The film really breaks down into thirds particularly well. Each has it’s elements that make it scary in different ways, which I really appreciated. The first portion of the movie is brief but poignant. The story focuses on a doctor who runs an asylum of sorts and his wife. She is at their country home, which is considerably remote. It appears more like a fortress than anything. The real trouble comes at night when she’s locked in for the night. She hears a loud knock at the door and goes to open a small panel to find a rather frantic man at the front door. It’s especially jarring because it’s clear that the man has only one working eye and one glass eye. That’s frightening enough. But the urgency by which he’s banging on the door comes from the notion that while the doctor’s wife was looking for something in her car, a man slipped into the home and is now locked in with her. The outdoor man proposes letting him in but now she’s caught in a catch 22. Listen to the man outside and allow him to aid in staving off an indoor threat. Or be just wary enough of the outdoor man to barricade yourself inside and run the risk of there being an indoor man that can attack. Fortunately the doctor’s wife has a camera set up in the large foyer that takes still images at a set timed interval. She grabs the camera and hides in her tent (the house is being renovated and that’s where she’s sleeping) so she can scroll through the pictures. Picture one. Nothing. Picture two. Nothing. Picture three…
The second part of the movie takes place a year later. The doctor’s wife has died a brutal death. The doctor has moved on with a new love interest. The doctor’s wife has a twin sister who is blind and deals in items of a suspicious and haunted nature. She comes out to the house on the anniversary of her sister’s death. She wants to try and contact her. She makes her way out to the fortress in the woods and brings along a few rather unique items as her luggage. The biggest one is a human sized wooden mannequin kind of thing with a terrifying face. It has a brow that seems to furrow in disgust and a mouth that stands open permanently. With arms laying flat on the table, the entire ordeal is truly quite frightening. Between the relatively creepy nature of the twin sister and her unique look she has combined with the terrifying wooden man, the middle portion of the movie keeps you locked in fear quite resoundingly. The doctor’s new girlfriend is none too happy about the blind visitor and makes her opinion well known to the doctor. The two women attempt some kind of harmony but it does not come with any ease. Add in some supernatural elements to complicate the mix and things get rather spooky in the middle section of this movie.
The finale of the film focuses in on the doctor. We get some missing elements of his story that fill in important gaps. It really is nice how everything comes together cohesively into it’s own little elements. It’s not that the three act structure in this film is unique. But I think some films really benefit from the interlocking nature that this framework creates and this is definitely one of them. Each of the building blocks have their own story to tell but it’s not disjointed. I think that’s one of the things that I appreciated about the film in the end. There was a self contained piece to each chapter as they also completed a full picture in the end. Even in the last moments of the film there is a really satisfying completion to everything that brings it full circle.
Overall I think I feel comfortable giving this movie a solid B. Presently the asking price on Amazon is a little steep at over $25 for the blu ray so I’ll probably wait and see if it comes down a little. But I could definitely see this one making it’s way onto the shelf. It was worth the watch for sure and I would absolutely rewatch and recommend. I think it sits properly at a B without wavering either way towards a plus or a minus. Any way you slice things, this is another really great movie to throw on this Halloween season with some fairly dynamic scares that are put together well. It gets my seal of approval for sure. And on that note I think that about wraps up Oddity. So until next time, I’ll catch you on the flip side.