Sightlines · reception
How Oddity was received
2024 · Damian McCarthy · Oddity on Sightlines
The arc
Premiered at SXSW 2024, took the Midnighter Audience Award, then rode a rare word-of-mouth wave through its summer IFC/Shudder run — no reappraisal needed; it went straight from festival buzz to 'best horror of 2024' lists and has stayed there.
What’s debated
The endless horror-Twitter debate: is THE jump scare an all-time-great, decade-defining scare, or is it one perfect moment propping up an otherwise old-fashioned ghost story?
Its footprint
The life-size wooden man is the film's calling card — endlessly screenshotted, meme'd, and invoked as shorthand for 'the scariest prop of the 2020s' — and 'the Oddity jump scare' became a genre reference point almost overnight.
Where it stands
An instant Letterboxd horror darling and modern cult object that, together with Caveat, minted Damian McCarthy as a name cinephiles now watch on announcement alone.
Did you know? Mike Flanagan publicly raved about it on his Letterboxd account, calling the film 'a masterclass in dread, atmosphere, and tension' — one of the endorsements that supercharged its word-of-mouth run.
Named by the director
- Ringu (1998) — McCarthy repeatedly points to Sadako's TV emergence as the best-crafted jump scare ever — slow, suspenseful dread rather than a cheap jolt — a model for Oddity's scares.
- Friday the 13th (1980) — He rewatched it while making Oddity, which contains sequences built as homages to classic slashers.
- Halloween (1978) — The other slasher he revisited for Oddity's homage sequences.
- The Witches (1990) — McCarthy cited Nicolas Roeg's haunted-painting image — the girl trapped in the picture — as an inspiration he drew on.