One of the Decade’s Scariest Films Perfectly Honors an 83‑Year Horror Tradition

Image: Shudder

Picture a solitary woman walking home at night, every step punctuated by the sharp click of her heels. She senses someone behind her; the sound tightens the air until a sudden hiss slices the tension. Relief follows — a bus pulls up and she slips inside — but the moment lingers, the blueprint of a modern cinematic fright.

That sequence from Jacques Tourneur’s 1942 classic Cat People helped define the jump scare through suggestion and edit rather than spectacle. Once earth-shaking to audiences and divisive to critics, it now reads more as an elegant exercise in restraint than the kind of visceral jolt that sends viewers flying from their recliners.

Fortunately, contemporary horror has expanded the toolbox of terror. One recent film that refines that art is streaming now — an ideal pick if you want to be unsettled this Halloween.

Premiering in 2024 — first at SXSW and later on Shudder — Oddity opens with a brutal killing. Dani, alone in her remote home, is visited by a stranger who warns her she’s in peril; soon thereafter she’s violently taken from life.

One year on, her husband Ted has moved on and is living with a new partner in the same house. When Dani’s twin sister, Darcy, arrives to probe the circumstances of the murder, she brings with her uncanny psychic gifts. Darcy’s investigation pries open unsettling revelations that escalate into both supernatural dread and mortal danger.

Oddity is built from atmosphere rather than gore: a taut 98 minutes of hush, dread, and expertly timed shocks. One sequence that lingers, in particular, repurposes old camcorder footage to bend narrative logic in a way that unsettles long after the credits roll.

The film’s unnerving creations — notably a human-scale, malformed golem that Darcy brings into the story — are striking visually but not the film’s primary source of fear. Instead, the movie mines a deeper terror: the corrosive capacity for human evil intersecting with uncanny forces beyond comprehension. That balance gives the picture emotional weight and keeps it from feeling like another disposable fright-fest.

Combined, these elements make Oddity one of the more genuinely disturbing horror films of recent seasons — not because of splatter, but because it gets under your skin. Its jump scares land hard, and its lingering unease rivals the classical scarecraft of filmmakers like Tourneur.

Where to watch: Streaming on Shudder, Hulu, and Disney+.

Polygon’s annual Halloween Countdown is a day-by-day collection of short recommendations — the best horror films, series, single episodes, and seasonal specials to stream throughout October. See the full calendar here.

Source: Polygon