Odd Thomas is the new movie by Stephen (The Mummy) Sommers based on the first book in the Dean Koontz Odd Thomas series of novels. It stars Anton Yelchin who, while not being a mainstream actor, is up-and-coming – he was in Terminator: Salvation and is Checkov in the Star Trek reboots. Willem Dafoe costars. So it’s not like this movie is your usual direct-to-video caliber stuff… yet that’s basically what’s happened to it. I caught it on streaming (Apple TV/iTunes) and I gather it has a small theatrical release as well.

Does it deserve better? Probably, yeah.

Dean Koontz writes and sells a lot of novels yet he’s only had one movie of any merit in Hollywood – an adaptation of Hideaway with Jeff Goldblum. It wasn’t a great film but compared to the majority of direct-to-video adaptations, it was triple A (don’t get me started on Watchers or its pitiful sequels). So Odd Thomas looked like a real shot at quality Hollywood treatment and, to an extent, it succeeds. It’s a real flick… a real odd and quirky flick… but at least it has a budget and talented actors and no small amount of effort put into making it a decent flick.

Odd Thomas is the quirky story of a quirky guy named Odd Thomas who lives in a quirky small town and see quirky dead people. I suspect the quirk (and oddness) of the film / story may be why the studio (or whoever) didn’t have enough faith in the movie. It’s not a normal movie… and this with them even removing the ghost of Elvis as a character (he’s in the book but is only referenced in passing in the flick)… so they probably figured it wouldn’t find an audience based on trailers. Not a lot of faith there… but perhaps accurately predicted.

I enjoyed this film without loving it. It’s a good, amusing, well shot, good looking film that manages to not go careening off the rails as it gets deeper into its mystery. It even manages to elicit some pathos at the end. I give it a slight recommendation for people who either love Koontz, this book series, or who wouldn’t mind a movie that gently mocks the paranormal “I see dead people” type stories. It’s a knowing wink at that sub-genre while being part of it.

Score: 77