After subjecting myself to an ad hoc horrorfest of straight-to-video stinkers, it was such a relief to see a microbudget independent from a crew who could at least keep a camera steady.

Inexchange (2005) is definitely junk cinema, but it at least delivers that which such films promise, & it has an excellent soundscape which is sometimes more important than finer cinematography in making a no-budget film feel smoothly done.

Maury (Sean Blodgett) is the college dufus, lonely, taken advantage of & bullied, mainly just existing unnoticed in a sad world. He has a roomy in the dorm who seems to be as nice as any popular guy could be to a dork roommate, but in reality Jay (Tod Richard Lewis) is setting him up for a fall.

One day an unseen figure speaks to him in an eerie voice: "I know what you want. I know what you need. You just have to admit it." The voice might or might not be real; it could be the first stages of schizzy madness, or Maury might really be haunted by a tempting demon, one who can make all his bloody vengeful daydreams come into existence.

Jay with brotherly attitude finally convinces Maury not to hide out in the room but to show up at a party later that night. When he arrives, he's at first treated well, gotten drunk, & when helplessly besotted, Jay & his buddies carry him out onto the lawn, stand around him, & piss all over him.

One girl at the party intervenes. This is Lara (Tiffany Wilson) for whom Maury has secretly had a crush. In the wake of her concern, Maury flees the party, the last straw having been thrust upon his bitter life.

On the way back to his dorm by night, he encounters the weird man (Andrew W. Burt) behind the haunting voice, a man in a long coat & blindfolded. "I'm here to give you your only wish, the wish you've kept imprisoned in the darkest region of your soul." And the bargain is struck.

Later in the night, one of the bullies (Bradley J. Gunter) is walking across campus when he realizes a blindfolded man is somehow following him. Though it's taken a very long time for the film to get around to its first kill, it hasn't been dull so far, & even so it's high time something happened. Alas the kill, with knife, is perfunctory & not the least gory.

The nice girl stops by Maury's dorm room to apologize for what happened to him the night before. She sees his sensitive side & has made a decision to help build his self-esteem by sleeping with him. This will turn out not to be as good an idea as she may have thought, as a guy like that inevitably falls crazily in love & will be psychotically disappointed when it sinks in that he was a pity-fuck.

If we believe blindfold-man is the devil, then we have to wonder if Maury getting laid was also arranged by him. And there are invariably unrewarding tricks behind what the devil provides.

One by one all the bullies at the party & a girl while he's at it are killed by the demonic blindfolded man. This is a slasher movie mind you, yet the gore quotient in these kills is very slight, though ringleader Jay gets a grosser doom than the others, including acid in the face.

With all his tormenters dead, the blindfolded man comes to collect his fee, which the devil has not previously specified, though we should by now be assuming the price is Lara, as well as Maury's life.

But Maury finds the bargain unfair because Lara doesn't actually love him. The devil says he can always arrange a fabulous lay but love is not something within his range of authority. A final doomful killing occurs, though by now we see the blindfold is actually on Maury, & nothing's going to end well for that mofo.

This film is an intriguing curiosity. As an exploitation film it falls short because the gore FX are minimal, the multiple killings quick & unimaginative. But it develops quite a good study of rage & madness, with a shock ending not suprising but effective. The acting though not the best is more than adequate, & I must say I enjoyed the film a lot.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl