I decided it was time to stop avoiding every single movie my ex ever recommended. She watched a staggering amount of movies and it seems silly to sacrifice a bunch of things I legitimately wanted to see on the altar of a dead relationship. And I was sold on this movie the minute I saw the terrifying wooden man in the trailer.
It stands to be said that if a man in a horror movie says “This house is not being haunted by the ghost of my dead wife”, then not only is the house being haunted by the ghost of his dead wife, you should probably dump him and move out. And to the obligatory asshole widower’s girlfriend character she does book it straight out of the plot the minute she finds her car keys. And it’s a good thing she did, too,
This movie has a lot of things to say about power and disability. The Asshole Horror Husband of the hour is Dr. Timmis, a psychiatrist on the night shift of a run down mental hospital, who uses his position and the power he holds over his patients to his personal gain. In direct opposition of him is Darcy, the blind twin sister of the aforementioned dead wife. Dr. Timmis degrades Darcy from the start, disbelieving in her psychic abilities, subtly disparaging her blindness, and implying that her cancer has returned the minute she’s said something he dislikes.
This isn’t to say Darcy isn’t difficult. She’s a deeply weird psychic with no sense of social skills who is in deep grief over her twin sister. I loved her very, very much, and you absolutely understand where she’s coming from, even when she is doing deranged things like inviting herself and a giant wooden mannequin full of holes with her twin’s hair, teeth, and blood inside it over to the house where her sister died.
Speaking of the mannequin: it complicates the disability stuff as well. Because it is easy to write off the blind psychic as an offensive stereotype. But. Darcy makes it clear that the mannequin was her mother’s first, and that a witch had gifted it to her mother. The antique store that only sells cursed objects? (The curses get lifted upon sale.) Also her mother’s. Even the dead sister wholeheartedly believed in ghosts. Which makes Darcy less of a blind psychic and more of a psychic who happened to go blind.
But her disability is not inconsequential. Dr. Timmis is able to use it to bring about her downfall, manipulating her into falling to her death into a trap door she could not see him open. We have noticed, by this point in the film, that Dr. Timmis is highly skilled at implying people are crazy, and therefore implying he can do much worse to them, in order to get what he wants. And even Darcy, strong as she is, and she is strong enough to murder people inside a locked room from several miles away, she cannot help but doubt herself in the face of that.
After the last loose thread is institutionalized Dr. Timmis removes his mask entirely. He lays out perfectly how he is in a perfect position to use people to his own ends and discard them when they become inconvenient. You could not write a better treatise on the inherent power imbalances between a disabled person and a medical professional, even one who is a friend or loved one, if you tried. (Don’t worry though. Darcy gets the last laugh in the end, in a call back to an earlier conversation that had me positively gleeful.)
Which is fascinating because as far as I can tell, director Damian McCarthy did not do this on purpose. I can’t find any quotes about it in any of his interviews. The driving force behind the creation of the film appears to be this quote from the Austin Chronicle: “”I’m a big fan of those old ‘doll comes to life’ films – Chucky in Child’s Play, Creepshow,” he said, “but they’re always small, and I thought it would be cool to have one that’s your size, that would be a force to reckon with if it did come alive (link).” Which is wild to me. Because my take away from this film was not ‘ah. cool. Spooky doll but big this time.’ It was ‘Yes. The abuses that happen to disabled people are both personal and institutional, and one always taints the other.’ It is a very clever movie, and cleverer than I think it is being given credit for.
I do want to take some time talking about the visual styling of the movie. We are in modern times. There are smart phones and computers. In fact, there being only one spot in the whole haunted house that has cell service is plot relevant in several different respects. But everything looks like it is a time out of time, vaguely 40s or 50s. The house, the antique shop, especially the asylum. Everyone’s clothes. So when modern things such as the bright yellow tent Darcy’s sister is murdered inside, inside her house, or a smart phone, or a modern car, show up, we are jarred in a really exciting way. The mix of vintage aesthetics and modern technology is a fascinating way of destabilizing your audience and their expectations.
To close out: a discord buddy of mine mentioned the other day that ‘true terror acting is weirdly rare’, and we get a really good spot of it in the last ten minutes. It’s a brief moment but it was really well done. I think Oddity is absolutely worth checking out, if you like haunted houses, investigative horror, weird psychics, or any of this sounds intriguing. It’s on Shudder at the moment. I think it’s absolutely worth watching.
Signing off,
Marlowe
Marlowe Writes 