Oddity (2024) - Movie Review

[Music] welcome to the haunted beard everybody my name is Jake thank you for joining me today I want to give you my review for the film odity this is a supernatural type horror film directed by Damen McCarthy now this is McCarthy's second feature film and he is somebody that I was curious and kind of had my eye on after seeing his feature film debut caveat which is film that came out a few years back I think one of the kind of more hidden gems of the last few years I was pretty impressed with his debut film had a lot there that I really appreciated and so was really interested in seeing his followup and so odity tells the story of a woman who is a psychic medium who is investigating the murder of her twin sister and so having now seen odity and now having two of McCarthy's films to kind of reflect on you're starting to see some of his style kind of emerge this is a guy who is really good at the Slow Burn he he's not in a rush he's a patient filmmaker he uses some restraint and kind of subtlety and he's really more interested in kind of building a mysterious and sort of creepy and unsettling atmosphere and and all of that I think comes through quite well here in odity and McCarthy has this way of kind of blending in a handful of different horror sub genres this is a movie that feels like part Haunted House movie part murder mystery part supernatural horror part Revenge Story Part Possession movie there's kind of a whole lot of different flavors that he is able to kind of weave together in in a very successful way and I think that type of presentation is one of the highlights and one of the strengths of this film as it really does have this very kind of mysterious atmosphere overall things just kind of feel off it feels like every character is harboring some sort of secret and we're kind of just sitting there kind of wondering and pondering what exactly are they hiding and I really like the level of restraint that McCarthy uses just kind of the whole less is more approach he's interested in giving you enough to where he kind of wants you as the viewer to sort of let your imagination and your mind kind of take over and fill in the gaps and I really like like that one element that he uses I think very well that kind of helps with that is the sound design the sound design and the sound effects in this movie I found incredibly impactful and very effective just these very Twisted Eerie bizarre weird sound effects there are sequences throughout the film that have this kind of deep Bassy humming to them and man I I just really found that effective and and when he implements those sound effects it really kind of helps heighten the atmosphere and add to the overall just Eerie creepy nature of this whole thing and so all of that I thought was very effective and so not only does he do a pretty good job kind of building atmosphere and tension but there are some genuine scares here there are a couple moments I'll say one genuine jump scare that really got me that I thought was quite effective there's another one that's also pretty good and so he he's good with kind of building the tension slowly but then also kind of hits you with a couple jolts that you know jolt you and jump you out of your chair as well so just a good mixture there and in addition to the sound effects some of the editing as well really lends to building the atmosphere and and kind of the mystery and the tension of the whole film there's a couple scenes where he just kind of cuts away from the scene really before the scene ends and so he's you know purposefully and intentionally withholding information from the audience which I found to be pretty effective as it again kind of builds tension and keeps us in anticipation and so I like some of the editing choices here there's a murder that happens where there is this kind of jump cut that I thought was really effective there's this sort of camera effect where you just see a bunch of stills from this camera that's set on this automatic timer and so there's this other kind of editing camera effect that he uses that I also found pretty effective as well and so I really like the overall style and presentation of the film another highlight for me is the lead performance by Carolyn Bracken who plays the blind psychic medium and she has this ability to read objects and so she shows up at this home where her sister was murdered and tries to put together the pieces and solve the mystery and she's a character who is odd and also mysterious I feel like I've used that word quite a few times throughout this review but I think it's very applicable but yeah she's just kind of this odd character who it is not concerned at all with kind of the normal common niceties she just kind of she's her own person she marches to the beat of Her Own Drum kind of thing she's very blunt very direct she's not too concerned with making people feel awkward or uncomfortable she just is who she is but I was very intrigued and very taken to her character I thought she did just a really fantastic job in the role now there is a lot to appreciate about odity I'm still very much on the positive but I did have a few issues with it um I did find the kind of final reveal to be a little bit predictable I I I kind of had a thought that that was kind of where it was ultimately going to lead and so there is an element of predictability here there's something that happens towards the end of the movie that is I'll just say a little bit too convenient for my personal liking and while I am satisfied overall with the film the ending didn't quite land with with the impact that I wanted I still think it's good it just didn't quite hit the level of of impact that I really wanted overall though I'm still very much on the positive I would recommend this one especially if you are a fan of McCarthy's previous film caveat uh I'm going to give this one a solid seven out of 10 for odity so yeah those are my thoughts hit me up down below like always if you've seen this one let me know your thoughts would love to hear from you that's all I got for you thank you so much for watching like always if you got anything out of this video go ahead and do me a favor and do not click that subscribe button unless you want to be haunted by the beard [Music]