Oddity is one of the most pleasant surprises of the year. The supernatural Irish horror film took SXSW by storm (the film’s wooden man attended in the… flesh? Before making his rounds on the East Coast). The tension within just the first ten minutes of this movie is intense as hell. A quick personal anecdote: I hit play on this movie late at night and almost immediately turned it off to finish in the daylight because it was a little too intense. Yes, I was a chickenshit. But I finished it in the morning and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
The supernatural story follows a blind medium as she uncovers the truth behind her sister’s death with the help of a frightening wooden mannequin. A curios shop is featured in the movie, and in a lot of ways, the movie itself is a bit of a curios shop. An Oddity as it were. Writer-director Damian McCarthy describes it as “a mix of a lot of old ideas that I could never find a home for.” Read our full interview with Oddity writer-director Damian McCarthy below.
Something I love about this movie, in particular, is that you play with our perception of what evil is. What does evil look like? Was that something you wanted to do while writing the script?
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s a little bit like the way that Carolyn Bracken plays two roles, and I kind of felt like everybody else in the film does as well. Nearly everybody is set up as one thing, but then there’s something else. So with everybody, it wasn’t just with Carolyn; you’re kind of talking about the other side of their character, which will be revealed later.
I mean, when Tadhg [Murphy] shows up at the door trying to talk his way in, he has to be very threatening. But you also have to put a bit of doubt on that. He can’t just be this crazy guy trying to talk his way into the house. And then with Ted (Gwilym Lee), he has to be a little bit prickly as well. He can’t be so supportive and nice. Everybody has that other side to them. As we go along, we see which side is kind of in control in some ways.
You don’t want the audience to ever feel fully one way or the other about these characters, so we’re always kind of on the fence about everybody. What kind of conversations do you have in setting up that performance?
I was very lucky with my actors; they had fantastic instincts and brought so much to it. I always think that you can kind of go so far with a script, but then your actors turn it into something else, which is just brilliant. I really had that on this, which was great.
In terms of early conversations with them, I tell them there might be some character trait I’d try to watch out for. I’d say if you’re coming across to whatever it’ll be, my job will just be to let you know, and that’s it. For the most part, I had to do very little, which was good. It was like, “You’re coming across too threatening here, just take it back a little bit.” But they were very talented actors, and they had it, which was great.
Let’s talk about the other star of the show, the wooden mannequin. There’s a very golem-esque feel to it, but wood instead of mud and clay. So tell us about this wooden man, who brought him to life, and what was the process of creating this kind of creature?
Oddity is an unusual script for me. In terms of feature films, I write all the time, and it’s like, “Well, there’s only one way to tell the story, and all of the characters belong here, and this is what it’s about.” With Oddity, it was a mix of a lot of old ideas that I could never find a home for. I could have made a short film about Olin trying to talk his way into the house and failing and the consequences of that, and it would’ve made a really cool ten-minute short film. But there’s no way it would’ve made a 90-minute movie. A lot of this stuff in this film was like that. The desk bell, the wooden man.
So, the wooden man is essentially one of those things. I liked the idea of that golem coming to life and being used as a tool of revenge for Darcy (Carolyn Bracken), and it was just finding a way to blend him into the story. But when he became the centerpiece, it became about the design. What does he look like, and how does he move? How do we introduce him to the audience?
The idea was obviously he was going to be front and center for the audience. He’s never hidden, he’s just there. Then you’re just waiting for him to finally do something, almost to the point of… “Is he ever going to do anything? Is he just going to sit there for the whole movie?”
I drew out some ideas of what I thought he would look like. It was quite important that he always had that silent scream just to leave it open for sound design. I thought if he ever does come to life, then he’s already screaming. Sound design is like 80% of what’s scary in a horror film. So it left us wide open to do whatever we wanted afterward with the sounds that were coming out of him.
We had approached a special effects company, it just didn’t work out, and we were really caught for a time on how to design this.
My sister is a makeup artist, and she studied with Paul McDonnell here in Ireland. I reached out to Paul, we still haven’t met, it’s only ever been over Zoom. I told him the story; I said, “How long would it take to do this?” We told him what was happening. And he was like, “I’d need three months to do what you’re asking.” I said, “You might have maybe three or four weeks.”
He thought about it, thankfully not for long, and he said, “Well, if you can be very decisive with what you want the wooden man to look like, then we can do it.” So it was pretty much just sitting down, a cup of tea in hand, over Zoom, just watching Paul sculpt this thing. It was kind of a one-take design, which was crazy. Over the Zoom call, we’d discuss, “Let’s change the shape of his mouth. Let’s put in more lines of timber through him.” Then away they went. He was working seven days a week to get this thing molded for the performer, so it was full-on. That’s the full story of the idea of the wooden man all the way up to finally getting him seated at the table.
Tell us about some Irish horror films that everyone should watch.
Oh yeah, let’s see. You Are Not My Mother, which also starred Carolyn Bracken from Oddity, and The Hole in the Ground by Lee Cronin is great. Obviously, Lee has gone on to do big things with Evil Dead Rise. Stephen Shields wrote Abigail. I met Stephen recently, great writer. To throw way back, we’ll go to Neil Jordan. One of my favorites of his is Interview with the Vampire. It still stands up. It’s always worth it to watch and go back. Those are the ones that are jumping out at me at the moment. I’m sure I’ll think of five more now.
Oddity is in theaters July 19th.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
