'Oddity's darkly funny ending came by happy accident
Damian McCarthy shares the secrets of the final shot in "Oddity," involving a haunted bell and an irate ghost.
One of the best horror movies of 2024 has an ending that's sublimely sick and satisfying. And that very last shot came by chance.
When Mashable sat down with Oddity writer/director Damian McCarthy — and the Wooden Man at the film's center — we learned how the last brutal beat in the multifaceted horror story came to be.
Sure, Oddity begins with a frightening premise of home invasion: a woman alone, renovating her remote country house, hears a knock at the door only to be confronted by a wild-eyed stranger who warns her that someone has snuck inside and means to hurt her. But from there, McCarthy pulled from folk horror, haunted house movies, and killer doll flicks to craft a menacing medley of a movie, which has an anthology feel even as it centers on one house and the doomed people who cross its threshold.
While the flashiest figure in Oddity is undoubtedly its Wooden Man, McCarthy also looped in a pretty but haunted bell to strike the perfect tone for the film's final moment.
Be warned, the following will dig into spoilers for Oddity's third act.
Oddity's ending explained.
The woman in the opening is Dani, the dark-haired twin to blonde (and blind) medium Darcy, who owns an oddity shop for which the film might well be named. When we first meet Darcy, she's mourning her sister, who was murdered a year before in the aforementioned country home. Reunited with her brother-in-law, Ted, Darcy tells the tale of a haunted desk bell she holds in her hands.
"There was a man — not a very pleasant one — who spent most of his life working as a bellboy at a hotel," she explains in the film's first act. "And one night, he was showing a drunk guest to his room, and the guest shoved him down the stairs, and he broke his neck and died in the fall. And a few days later, the receptionist rang the bell to summon the new bellboy. Only who did she see running towards her — not looking very happy?"
While Darcy is visibly enchanted by the story, Ted scoffs, daring her to ring the bell and "see what happens." She warns him, "It's not something to be played with, Ted, seeing as the last two people who rang it were found dead."
The bell will be set aside as they discuss the grim anniversary of Dani's death. But in the final scene, it comes back. After the true villain behind Dani's death has been revealed, and those who've gotten their hands bloody have paid for their sins, Ted returns to his home to find a package mailed from Darcy's shop. Clearly, before she surprised him and his girlfriend with the Wooden Man in the crate, she'd sent this small box off for a final part of her plan. And what lies inside? The haunted desk bell.
Home alone — as Dani was at the movie's start — Ted takes out the bell. And even now — even after his girlfriend's insistence on seeing Dani's ghost, his colleague's tale of the rampaging Wooden Man, and Darcy's cryptic threats — his mind is closed to the possibilities of the paranormal. So, Ted sits down and rings the bell, tempting fate.
He looks around his home and sees no dead bellboy. But just as it seems the movie might end — with Little Willie John's jaunty R&B track "Now you Know" playing — McCarthy's Oddity cuts to a wide shot. In the foreground, Ted smiles, feeling smug about his seeming victory. But behind him — out of his line of view — is a dead bellboy, standing still but nonetheless menacing.
The film cuts to the credits, but even unseen, Ted's fate is assured.
Damian McCarthy reveals how the ending of Oddity came to be.
Speaking with Mashable, McCarthy said of Oddity, "One of the things that I wanted to do with the film was just that it would never take itself too seriously." While the movie involved murder, vengeance, and ghouls, there is a cheeky humor woven throughout. "The way people talk to each other, they're quite sarcastic or cutting," McCarthy said of his characters, adding, "I think that just makes the film more enjoyable."
From there, he revealed that this final moment — that final, darkly funny wide shot — was stumbled across in production. "We found that on the set," McCarthy explained, "Because originally, it was supposed to end with a close-up of this figure that's come for Ted." While the crew was setting up the next shot, Gwilym Lee, who plays Ted, and Shane Whisker, who plays the bellboy, were waiting patiently on set: the former seated at the dining table, the latter standing behind him with his hands folded at his belly.
"They were just taking a break between setups," McCarthy recalled, "And just looking at it — Shane couldn't move because the contact (lenses) he was wearing completely blinded him. So he said, 'I'll just be safer standing here' — the way he's standing at the end of the film. And Ted was just taking five sitting down. And I was at the other side of the room, and like, 'That's a really interesting shot. Let's just get that as well.' And that ended up becoming the better, much funnier, darker ending than the one we originally planned."