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Exploited (2022) / Oddity (2024)






The first movie I watched was this 2022 thriller about a college student who stumbles onto a mystery at his school.











Brian is anxious about his first day at college. As he checks into his dorm room, he befriends his roommate Jeremy, Jeremy's girlfriend Lexi, and their friend Janelle. While putting away his stuff, Brian finds a thumb drive in one of the cabinets belonging to Jeremy (all students are given one to access wifi, etc.). Mistaking it for his, he puts it into his computer and discovers a bunch of video files in the trash folder. They seem to show a webcam model called Wrestlerstud99, who tapes his sessions with all his clients, both male and female. As he becomes obsessed with the videos, he eventually stumbles onto one that appears to show the cam model getting murdered by a masked assailant. Brian seeks the help of his brother Jacob to look into the mystery, in an effort to find out who this mysterious cam model is and what happened to him. To complicate matters, Brian and roommate Jeremy end up in bed together after a night of drunken partying, and the group of friends all start getting their devices hacked by a mysterious person who is trying to manipulate them all. 













This movie played like a typical CW series, only with an R rating for nudity and sex. For the most part it's cheesy, predictable, but at the very least not boring, and the actors aren't too bad. If you enjoy a soap opera plot with a bunch of young pretty people, then this will be right up your alley. You get the wild party girl, the closeted jock bro, the "nice" nerd (complete with glasses) whom you just know will turn out to be shady, the clueless girlfriend, secrets, high school drama, lies, etc, and of course the final twist that you can see coming a mile away. It got a few chuckles out of me, so it wasn't a total waste of time. Check it out if you're in the mood for something fun and dumb. It's on Tubi.















This next film, holy shit! It was the complete polar opposite of Exploited. Oddity was creepy, scary, and extremely well done.





Full disclosure here... this is usually the part where I'll give a brief synopsis of the plot. The thing is, this is one of those movies where you're better off going in completely blind. I had read a bit about this film, mostly seeing it showing up on lists of best horror films so far of 2024. I hadn't even watched the trailer, just a few movie stills. If you really want, you can always read the synopsis online or get an idea from the trailer, which honestly shows too much. What is it about movie trailers these days that practically give away the entire damn plot, or spoil important scenes??? Anyway, all I will say is that the story involves a psychic trying to solve a mystery. Once you get into the story, it is somewhat predictable, but the film is so well done that it won't spoil your enjoyment of it.









Oddity is one of the best horror films I've seen in a long time. Fantastic performances (Carolyn Bracken is stunning), some truly effective scares, a great script and a wonderfully creepy and tense atmosphere make this movie a winner. This one turned out to be another example where I ignored the hype, and was pleased to see that it was warranted. I enjoyed this so much that I'm actually pissed that I didn't get to watch this in a movie theater. Not that it had much of a wide release, at least not in my area. But enough of my ramblings. If you're looking for a serious, eerie, slow burn but effectively creepy horror film, then definitely check it out. I streamed it on Amazon.









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