The Scariest Movie of 2024 Is Streaming Now
Damien Mc Carthy’s Oddity is, without question, the scariest movie of the year. When you break down the building blocks of what makes a scary movie conventionally scary, you’re left with the breathless beats and streamlined terror of Mc Carthy’s sophomore feature. Broadly, I think 2024 has been a remarkable year for horror (though, in fairness, when is it ever not?). While I won’t be diving into the nitty gritty of what qualifies as firm horror—but, yes, Longlegs is scary—no other feature this year has been as classically haunting as Oddity. Now that the film is streaming on Shudder, it’s the perfect time to revisit one of the year’s best.
Not convinced? Check out the trailer below and see for yourself.
Synopsis: After Dani is brutally murdered, her blind occultist twin sister, Darcy, goes after those responsible using inherited haunted items as her tools of revenge.
When Oddity was released this summer, the movie was widely embraced by critics. As of this writing, it remains the second highest-rated horror movie of the year on Rotten Tomatoes, edged out (barely) by Late Night With the Devil. That feature is broadly predicated on its central gimmick, and while it worked remarkably well for me, it’s liable to turn some viewers off. Same for Longlegs, a terrifically frightening feature that, like the best of them, polarized audiences. Other top contenders, including The First Omen, are reliant on longstanding franchise lore. While those features are successful in their own right, none are quite as stripped-down and innately scary as Oddity.
In our four-star review out of this year’s SXSW festival, we wrote, “Damian Mc Carthy’s latest is really damn scary.” Oddity would later win the festival’s Audience Award in the Midnighter section, though even with mountains of praise backing it up, Oddity remains, well, an oddity. Ask any casual moviegoer whether they’d even heard of it. Odds are, they haven’t.
It’s a shame, if an expected one. In today’s crowded ecosystem, it’s challenging enough for a movie with sufficient backing to break through, let alone a baby Irish horror movie with a limited theatrical release. For reference, Oddity was in theaters near me for a week before it was pulled from the schedule. Its wide availability now basically mandates a watch. It is, genuinely, the year’s scariest movie. While I’ve been unnerved and frightened plenty of times this year—I even found some gruesome delight in Alien: Romulus—nothing has rattled me quite as much as Oddity.
It was, by design, the classic scary movie experience. The key genre hallmarks were all there: A scary doll (in Oddity’s case, a monumentally unnerving wooden mannequin), plenty of jump scares, an accelerated pace, and an overwhelmingly gothic design centered in one principal location.
The broad outline never really narrows, and in Oddity’s case, that’s a boon. Darcy (Carolyn Bracken in a dual performance), a blind clairvoyant and cursed tchotchke aficionado, visits her late sister’s home for an overnight. Ted (Gwilym Lee), her late sister’s husband, and his new girlfriend, Yana (Caroline Menton), aren’t especially thrilled to have her, especially since the aforementioned mannequin is in tow. Darcy isn’t convinced her sister died the way everyone thinks, so she’s there to see her way to the truth.
And, really, that’s the core of Oddity. There are brief detours beyond the cold, austere walls of Ted’s country-meets-modern home, though the bulk of the action occurs within its confines. Mc Carthy culls considerable tension from that architectural familiarity. The better we get to know the house as an audience, the better Mc Carthy can play with our expectations. Oddity has some of the year’s strongest jumps, and while a jump scare alone doesn’t a horror movie make, when done well, there are few moviegoing moments quite as exciting.
Caveat was a promising debut, and Oddity takes Mc Carthy’s knack for classic scares to the next level. The film is part The Changeling, part The Conjuring, and interestingly enough, part murder mystery procedural. There are a lot of disparate parts that come together beautifully and seamlessly, and at no point does Oddity lose focus of its fundamental goal—to scare the audience silly.
Take the opening beat. Dani (also Carolyn Bracken) is home alone. She calls Ted to update him on the progress she’s made in their new home. It’s a gorgeous estate, though frighteningly isolated and large. The bigger the house, the more space for something terrifying to hide. The beds aren’t even set up yet. Instead, Dani is consigned to sleep in a single tent in the middle of the downstairs living space.
Ted works nights, so Dani is home alone when one of Ted’s former patients, Olin Boole (Tadhg Murphy), arrives at the front door. Only, Olin isn’t the threat. Instead, he’s there to let Dani know that, while she ran out to her car, he saw someone else sneak inside. Mc Carthy lets the beat linger, and the diegetic sound of the house settling overwhelms the audience. Are those just floor beams expanding and whining, or was that a footstep somewhere off in the distance?
Mc Carthy perversely traps Dani in an impossible place. Olin, while not an outward threat, is outside, so she can’t exactly open the door. But, if what he’s saying is true, she’s not exactly safe inside either. Mc Carthy wisely cuts the scene there, fast-forwarding to a year later with both Dani, and soon Olin, dead. Olin was convicted, but of course, we know that’s not the full story.
Most every sequence in Oddity is just like that. Pitch-perfect horror beats that rise, climax, and fall with pinpoint precision. You’ll scream. You’ll jump. More importantly, you’ll be fully immersed in the odd, terrifying, sensational world Mc Carthy has built here.
Oddity is now available to rent. A DVD and Blu-Ray release are set for October 22. Additionally, Oddity hits horror streamer Shudder today, September 27. If you don’t watch it, I might just send a cursed mannequin your way. You’ve been warned.
Categorized:Editorials
