Odd Thomas – Toronto After Dark 2013

Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) directs this adaptation of the best selling novel by Dean Koontz.  Odd Thomas (Anton Yelchin) is a man with the psychic ability to see ghosts around him.  Odd often uses these abilities to help Police Chief Wyatt Porter (Willem Dafoe) to solve murders around the town.  One day, Odd sees a surge of evil spirits, known as Bodachs, which appear only when mass carnage is coming.  Fearing that a massacre is imminent, Odd and his girlfriend Stormy Llewellyn (Addison Timlin) set out to find out when and where this terrible event is going to happen and put a stop to it. I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by Odd Thomas and found the film to be quite enjoyable.  It is not too often that we get adaptations of the novels of Dean Koontz, who is a horror author second only to Stephen King.  In fact, I think the most high profile Dean Koontz adaption before Odd Thomas was 1998’s Phantoms, which I would argue is probably more well-known for being quoted in Kevin Smith movies. Odd Thomas is a hard film to classify under a single genre.  At its core, the film is pretty much a mystery, with some horror and comedic elements.  Also, typical of the films of Stephen Sommers, there are also a number of action sequences in the film, complete with slow motion visuals and at least one explosion.  The film is also quite heavy in CGI, particularly with the Bodachs, who are shown as semi-translucent spirits. Part of what makes Odd Thomas so enjoyable is the great casting.  I would argue that the film is stolen by Addison Timlin (Californication) as Odd’s girlfriend Stormy.  She is a very sassy, and sometime macabre, individual and she has great chemistry in her scenes with Anton Yelchin.  It is always great to see Willem Dafoe in any film and there is a great recurring gag in the film of Odd interrupting date night with Chief Porter as his wife, in order to give new developments on the case.  The film also features Nico Tortorella (The Following) as Officer Simon Varner, as well as a brief, but enjoyable, cameo by Patton Oswalt. I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting all that much from Odd Thomas going in, so I am quite happy that I enjoyed it as much as I did.  Overall, the film is a quite entertaining supernatural mystery/action/comedy. 8 | LIKED IT