“On The Edge of My Seat” | Damian McCarthy, Oddity
Courtesy of IFC Films
In Oddity, a blind medium uncovers the truth behind her sister's death with the help of a frightening wooden mannequin.
Screening at 11:59 p.m., Saturday, May 4, at the Music Box Theatre (get tickets now), as part of the Chicago Critics Film Festival, Damian McCarthy’s supernatural spectacle has been a sensation on the festival circuit, recently winning the Audience Award at the Overlook Film Festival.
When Dani is brutally murdered at the remote country house that she and her husband Ted are renovating, everyone suspects a patient from the local mental health institution, where Ted is a doctor. However, soon after the tragic killing, the suspect is found dead. A year later, Dani’s blind twin sister Darcy, a self-proclaimed psychic and collector of cursed items, pays an unexpected visit to Ted and his new girlfriend, Yana. Convinced that there was more to her sister's murder than people know, Darcy has brought with her the most dangerous items from her cursed collection to help her exact revenge.
Ahead of Oddity screening at the Chicago Critics Film Festival, Damian McCarthy graciously took the time to answer this year’s CCFF filmmaker questionnaire. Below, his individual responses.
How did you first become interested in filmmaking? What was your path toward directing your first film?
My parents had a video rental store in Bantry, in West Cork in Ireland, where I grew up. My bedroom wall was always covered in movie posters taken from the store, and I rewatched my favorite movies continuously. My dad was, and still is, a big horror fan, so films were just a part of my life from an early age.
I went to film school in Cork for three years and made a lot of terrible short films. We shot on 8mm and 16mm and digital as it started taking over. These short films were terrible. I couldn't get them screened at any film festivals, so I left film school disheartened.
A few years later, I said I’d give it one more go and made a very simple short film called He Dies At The End. It was a silent, four-and-a-half-minute short horror film. It played at film festivals everywhere and won awards, and — more importantly, I think — gave me some confidence. Every short film I made after that worked, in terms of getting them screened at festivals or giving me some experience in filmmaking. All these short films were no-budget films, so they were good training for my first micro-budget feature film, Caveat.
What inspired you to make the film you're bringing to the festival?
Oddity has elements of slasher, supernatural, psychological, and folk horror. It's a collection of old ideas and characters that I had in my head for years, never knew what to do with, but really wanted to see on screen.
I’m always worried that each film I make will be my last. I didn’t think I’d get to make another film after Caveat, so I said, if I did get to make one more film, “What would I want to see in it?” With Oddity, I wanted to make a film that was a mashup of the different subgenres of horror I love.
The challenge with the script was taking all these characters and set pieces and finding a way to bring them together in one story, making them feel like they belong together. I think there's something about all of these various threats in one movie that makes the film work with an audience. If ghosts don’t scare you, then the unhinged stranger at the door will.
Courtesy of Damian McCarthy
Tell us about a film that you consider a guiding influence (whether it has informed your overarching vision as a filmmaker, directly informed the title you're bringing to the festival, or both).
John Carpenter's The Thing and Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2 will forever influence the films I make in some ways. Both are scary and have these claustrophobic settings but also have this great, dark sense of humor. Those two films are never far from my mind when I'm writing or storyboarding.
Tell us about a location that's held significance to the film you're bringing to the festival: a setting where filming took place, a geographic area that provided a source of inspiration, or another type of space that comes to mind for you in thinking about the film. What made this place so special?
I shot Caveat on the grounds of Bantry House in West Cork, in old stables that were renovated years ago. I built my sets in this large, open room, which has these high stone walls and a walkway overhead. I spent so much time there I started to wonder if I could write something around this interesting room, without having to build anything. Oddity was very much inspired by this room and written to be filmed there. Lauren Kelly was the production designer and gave the film this cold, masculine feel, which brought this large, empty room to life brilliantly.
The theatrical experience brings us together to celebrate artistic experience and expand our horizons as human beings. Tell us about a memorable theatrical experience from your life.
We had an old single-screen cinema in Bantry, where I grew up. My dad worked as a projectionist there in the ‘70s. The cinema used to screen a lot of kung-fu movies. At the start of the week, the film would be 90 minutes long, but by the end of the week it could be an hour long, as he'd cut out all the scenes he thought weren't playing well to the crowd. This might be where I get my editing skills.
The cinema closed in the early ‘90s, and one of the last films I saw there was Die Hard 2 when I was nine. There’s a scene where McClane (Bruce Willis) gets locked in the cockpit of a plane by terrorists. They shoot up the plane and then throw grenades in after him. I remember being on the edge of my seat, as there was no possible way out of this. With only seconds before the grenades go off, McClane straps himself into the pilot’s chair and pulls the ejection lever. There’s an overhead shot of the plane exploding and McClane, strapped to the pilot’s chair, hurtling towards the camera, away from the blast.
I remember a lot of laughing from the audience in the cinema. I don’t know if the laughter was because it was so ridiculous or because it was a relief from the tension that had been built up to this moment. Either way, everyone was entertained by the moment, so it’s an early memory of a shared theatrical experience that has stayed with me.
When we filmed Oddity, this old building, which was once a cinema, acted as our production offices and our production designer’s base. If I could tell my nine-year-old self he'd be back in this same building, 30 years later, working on his own movie, I think he would have been thrilled. I might also ask him what he’s doing in the cinema, watching Die Hard 2 at nine years old.