Oddity ★★★

KEEP an eye out for Irish horror director and writer Damian McCarthy.

His first two films, Caveat in 2020 and Oddity (2024), were universally praised and his third, Hokum, is in production.

Recent Irish horror films have tended to focus on a single location and psychological mind games in a supernatural setting impacting a few, usually related, characters.

They are well shot and edited and aided in their believability by strong performances. Oddity fits this bill exactly.

It has a classic early scene in which a woman leaves her home to investigate a noise. She finds nothing and returns inside.

A stranger then appears at her door telling her somebody snuck in while she was outside and she needs to let him in to help her.

It’s simple but very effective and the rest of the film follows in a similar vein with a growing sense of dread combined with cleverly executed jump scare moments.

Watched on Shudder