There exists a list of movies I want to and should watch, and I don’t look at it often. Some movies have a small blurb or note or link that relates to why I should see it, but most don’t. The other day, I recognized a title on my list that had been recommended to me on Hulu over and over again. I figured, what the hell, there’s a reason this movie is on my list, and hit play.
An Odd Gem
It paid off! Oddity is a rare instance of a horror that manages to capture the sheer tension and fear of having an extremely creepy, grotesque thing in the room. If you were unlucky, like me, you saw the wood guy featured in the movie. I mean, just the restraint the filmmakers had before revealing the gollum thing to us was gargantuan, and that the marketing had to include it was a damn travesty borne of capitalism. It’s a shame that a totally weird, scary, static object that completely dominates our attention, even when completely out of focus and far from the camera, was spoiled to us in every bit of marketing.
I really liked that the film managed find a way to make things eerie by ignoring the freaky guy for as long as they can- right up until he begins to make sure you notice him. That said, there’s many more freaks, including a little freak wearing a porcelain mask. The normally asinine decision for a woman to live in a tent, all alone, without cell phone reception, in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, is cranked to its absolute maximum when that horror piece is kicked off.
I enjoyed that the lead, played by Carolyn Bracken, gets a really incredible double role in the film playing twins. One character seems like a well-adjusted woman, and the other is a blind, pale, white-haired, absolute creep. It was excellent. And she’s not even the last weird little freaky deaky creepy leep in the movie.
My lone complaint about Oddity was that the plot was relatively apparent, and was then spelled out explicitly about halfway into the movie, which left the second half relatively tension- and mystery- free. I wasn’t a fan of the way the final comeuppance for the murderers had little to nothing to do with the vengeful sister. What’s more, the creepy gollum freak doesn’t even kill the guy it was supposed to.
Sister Movies
Oddly enough, the film Oddity shares a number of similarities to Bring Her Back. They’re definitely very different movies with different types of horror as their focal points, but the overlap is remarkable. In both films, the overall plot is explained relatively early on, they both feature siblings and their bond, they both feature summoning the supernatural to accomplish their goals, and both films have their characters just exist with the creepy guy in the room and barely acknowledge him. Both films also end without much tension, with the main villain only implied to have been defeated, and a relatively passive character getting away by car.
There’s no real point to this comparison, but I wonder what Bring Her Back would have been like if they had restraint to keep the possessed boy out of frame and attention.
Oddity has the foresight and brilliance to keep its creepy gollum as subtle as possible, right before giving us a very nonchalant ‘oh also, this guy is here’ shot in the middle of a conversation where the two characters are sitting beside it. Oh boy this film had the chops for scary visuals.
I thought Oddity was
Good
I watched Oddity on Hulu.
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