Oddity Ending Explained: True Message Behind the Movie

One of the most popular horror films of 2024 is Damian McCarthy’s Oddity, a movie that stands out from other recent films in the genre.

McCarthy has directed several short films and found some success with his first feature, Caveat, but Oddity seems to be the film that has caught the most attention.

The movie features strong performances, real scares, and a steady tone from start to finish. However, some viewers might be confused about the meaning of the ending or whether the events that happened earlier in the film have any significance.

The film’s ending, with a terrifying ghost standing next to one of the characters, is disturbing on its own. It also ties everything together by linking details from the start to the twists and turns that happen later in the movie.

Plot of Oddity

McCarthy’s film is about Ted Timmis (Gwilym Lee), a psychiatrist whose wife was brutally killed by a home intruder. Before her death, a strange man (Tadhg Murphy) came to their house to warn her.

Many people think he is the killer since he came from the same place where Ted works. One day, Ted decides to visit his late wife’s twin sister, Darcy (Carolyn Bracken), who owns a shop filled with odd objects that have meaning and stories behind them.

Ted, with his scientific mindset, sees these items as just trinkets and dismisses the whole shop as silly. Darcy, however, is blind but still has the ability to see through people, including Ted.

Throughout the film, Ted keeps telling others that he thinks Darcy needs psychiatric help because of her obsession with the supernatural. One day, Darcy randomly visits Ted’s house, which is the same house where Ted and his wife lived before her death.

Ted has moved on and now lives with a new girlfriend, Yana (Caroline Menton), who often says that she is scared to be alone in the house, and that Darcy frightens her too.

It is soon revealed that Darcy has a plan to prove that Ted is responsible for her sister’s murder. The main theme of the story is how people are not always what they seem. Darcy may seem strange at first with her blunt speech and harsh attitude towards Yana, but she is acting this way to protect her sister’s memory.

In the end, it turns out that Ted is the one who has a problem.

Oddity Ending Explained

When Ted leaves the house for work, it gives Darcy a chance to share some important details with Yana. She brings a life-sized wooden man as a gift, which definitely disturbs Yana.

The two talk in the dining room, and Darcy starts explaining the night her twin sister died. She talks about the home invader that most people believe killed her sister, but Darcy points out that certain details don’t add up. She believes someone else must have been there when her sister was murdered.

This new information, along with several ghostly images around the house, scares Yana so much that she leaves. Darcy is then left to confront Ted.

When Ted comes back home, he notices that the wooden man has moved, and Yana is gone. Darcy tells him that she thinks he’s responsible for all the chaos.

Ted quickly admits to killing his wife and several others. He confesses that the home invader was his accomplice, whom he met at work. He then tries to trick Darcy by taking advantage of her blindness.

She’s in a tight space upstairs, far from the nearest phone. Ted makes a deal with her—if she gets to the phone, they’ll work something out.

But there’s a large hole in front of her, and as she tries to reach the phone, she falls to her death.

Ted sends his accomplice to the house, but he fails to do anything and ends up being chased by the giant wooden man. This makes him an easy target for Ted to blame, and Ted has him sent to a psych ward.

It seems like Ted has gotten away with everything, and Darcy’s death seems pointless. But things aren’t over.

One of the odd objects that Ted dismissed earlier in the film comes into play again. It’s a bell, used in an old haunted hotel. If anyone rings it, a zombie-like bellhop appears to kill them.

Ted ignores Darcy’s warning and taps the bell without thinking. This leads to a final scare, with the bellhop appearing like something straight out of a Mike Flanagan show. The movie ends with us feeling that Ted finally got what he deserved.

Message Behind the Movie

What makes Oddity‘s ending so unique is how it connects to Ted’s character, who keeps making the wrong choices, but they’ve worked out for him up until now. He seems like a loving and trustworthy man, but by the end, viewers realize his true, despicable nature.

Darcy is someone the audience is uncertain about at first, but she ends up being the hero when the truth about Ted is revealed. Ted is responsible for several deaths at this point, including Darcy and her twin sister, as well as Ivan (Steve Wall), the orderly who helped him murder his wife.

It’s satisfying to see a villain get what he deserves, and it fits well with the larger story.

The story isn’t feminist in the sense of offering a simple, happy ending, but the three main female characters are the most relatable. Yana is the only one who has the sense to escape, Darcy is probably the wisest and most daring, and her twin sister, Dani, is the one we feel sorry for.

In a way, Darcy takes the lead by tricking Ted with a puzzle he has to solve, from bringing a strange gift to the house to showing up unexpectedly and testing his partner. Instead of playing his game, she creates her own with her own rules.

McCarthy brings this mindset to life through the built-up tension and atmosphere, but where he and his team shine the most is in making the characters feel real and complex, with their own motives and ideas.

Just like the odd items in the shop, these characters are real people with distinct personalities, and they aren’t what they first appear to be. Ted is a man who thinks he knows everything about everyone, and because of his violent nature and sense of entitlement, he believes he can get away with anything.

However, his world is turned upside down when Yana runs away, Darcy ends up dead, he kills his accomplice, and in the end, he ignores all the warnings.