Oddity (2024)
Directed by Damian McCarthy
After the brutal murder of her twin sister, Darcy goes after those responsible by using haunted items as her tools for revenge.
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What critics compared Oddity to
In his sophomore feature, writer/director Damian McCarthy (“Caveat”) puts a supernatural spin on a murder mystery whose amateur detective is a cinematic spiritual sister to the blind seer in “Don’t Look Now” and who runs a store that resembles the Warren’s occult museum (as seen in “The Conjuring” movies).
Similar to Oddity’s use of the creepiest mannequin to ever crawl out of Hell’s department store, it is the belabored shots of eerily smiling cherubic statues on the the bridal suite’s clock, or of Edwardian figurines the hotel owner uses to frighten small children in the lobby, wherein Hokum earns its bite.
McCarthy’s previous feature Oddity (2024) was a less successful hodge-podge of innovative ideas and wobbly stereotypes, and while that film certainly becomes a lot more enjoyable with familiarity Hokum feels a more accomplished and assured work from the outset.
If you didn’t already realize than Damien McCarthy is a visionary new talent in horror after “Oddity” and “Caveat,” then “Hokum” will seal the deal.
Brian Philip Davis edited both "Oddity" and "Hokum," and I caught up with Davis this morning to ask him about this scene, which is one of his favorites, too.
As with his previous two chillers, “Caveat” and “Oddity”, McCarthy relies mostly on atmosphere, mood, and patient pacing to unnerve us.
…written and directed by Damian McCarthy (Oddity)…
Fresh off the heels of films like the Philippous’ Talk to Me and Zach Cregger’s Barbarian comes Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy with Oddity—a folk horror tale with a near-perfect control of tension, atmosphere, and tone that brings a profoundly unsettling wooden mannequin and some of the most sadistically deployed jumpscares of recent memory to boot.