Oculus - Movie Review

By Kelly White On May 13, 2014 In Reviews: Movies, Sci-Fi & Fantasy Movie and Book Reviews No Comments

Send to Kindle

Oculus - Movie Review

Director: Mike Flanagan
Writers: Mark Bomback, Scott Frank
Stars: Karen Gillan, Annalise Basso, Brenton Thwaites, Garrett Ryan, Rory Cochrane, Katee Sackhoff, James Lafferty, Miguel Sandoval, Katie Parker, Kate Siegel
American Supernatural Drama Horror

It takes a lot to impress me when it comes to horror movies. I’m a huge horror fan, but I don’t eat up every thing that I get served. In the last several years Hollywood has been enjoying a string of profitable successes in franchises such as “Paranormal Activity” and “Saw”. But these movies are superficial, and while “Paranormal Activity” 1-3 were fun, the series quickly ran out of steam; and I was seriously lost as to why the “Saw” sequels were popular at all. For me, while the horror genre can be fun - I totally enjoy a good spook house blast - the potential for horror to be a vehicle for saying something more than just “boo” is what makes me love the genre. Films like Romero’s original Dead trilogy, “The Exorcist”, and “The Shining” are influential because they say something about how we live and/or survive in a brutal and chaotic world, or are commentaries on religion, psychology, and even domestic abuse. Mike Flanagan’s “Oculus” sits somewhere in between all of that.

From what you can pretty much gather from the trailer, “Oculus” is about Tim and Kaylie, siblings who survived the tragedy of their father murdering their mother. Tim shot their father just as he turned on them, and he was institutionalized as a result, claiming it wasn’t their father’s fault, but that the haunted antique mirror in their father’s study had possessed him. Now, ten years later, Tim has been released and just wants to move on with his life. Kaylie, however, plans to finally prove that Tim wasn’t crazy by documenting it doing weird things, and then she wants to destroy it. Once they get the opening act out of the way, the movie proceeds to switch between Tim and Kaylie’s present day and their past, revealing to the audience what they endured, and how it affects them today. The mirror apparently plays tricks on its victims’ perception of reality, and editing serves to play tricks on the audience as well. As we watch Tim or Kaylie attempt to survive the night, the two also watch their own past play out before them, and it’s often questionable what is supposed to be reality and what is supposed to be a hallucination. The atmosphere is palpable and the tone is bleak. As we’re lead to hope that Tim and Kaylie might actually be able to defeat the mirror, we quickly learn in the final act that at some point in the night they lost their grip on reality and the mirror has always been one step ahead of them.

A few years ago, Flanagan made a seriously great horror movie called “Absentia”. It was genuinely creepy, it had a thick dreadful tone, and it had something to say about how people deal with bereavement, grief, and the unknown. With “Oculus“, Flanagan successfully recreates the overwhelming sense of dread that is prevalent in “Absentia”, and he’s attempting to be poignant again, with a script that deals with domestic abuse and the long-term effects abuse has on children. There’s some great cinematography on display, and it’s really fun to watch the transitions between the past and present. It’s fascinating that the mirror itself rarely actively does anything until the final act, but even then it’s a bunch ghosts being spooky - and even then, it’s questionable that Tim might just be imagining them. More or less, the mirror acts as a looking glass into the darkness that lies on the other side of our sanity, but the movie never quite clarifies that point, and it’s possible that I’m reaching just to come to that conclusion. Ultimately, “Oculus” suffers from a disappointing final act that proves Flanagan couldn’t successfully commit to his own statements, and the movie closes with such a dumb ending that it all but erases the goodwill it had built in the beginning.

Written by Kelly White

Shop Spooky Shirts for the Horror Fan
HERE

Put On a Happy Face
Even If It’s Not Your Own

Your Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Fuel My Evil Machine

Get FREE Buzzy Mag Email Updates!