Oculus Review

Director: Mike Flanagan

Starring: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, and Katee Sackhoff

Based on the short film by Mike Flanagan, Oculus Chapter 3: The Man With a Plan

To be completely honest I though this movie looked like garbage. The trailers were uninteresting and it seemed like it was just every single Horror movie I’ve seen in the past ten years all spun into one package. Over the past decade almost every single Horror movie I’ve seen has involved some form of spirit or demonic entity so I was completely going to write this one off and not see it. However curiosity got the best of me and as a film and horror fan I went to see the film, and I surprisingly quite enjoyed it. As much as I love horror I find it’s quickly becoming a dead genre, everyone complains that Hollywood is running out of ideas and that couldn’t be more true for Horror. There hasn’t been a really good horror movie in years, even films that I’ve ended up liking such as Sinister have only been pretty decent, for a good horror movie you have to scare me, and unfortunately the only way to scare me is with Aliens, so maybe that’s why I’m not that affected with anything in the genre anymore, but Oculus is a fairly fun ride.

Based on a short film from the film’s Director Mike Flanagan called Oculus Chapter 3: The Man with a Plan, Oculus is about an evil mirror that kills anything from people, plants, even pets. The movie focuses on two siblings named Kaylie and Tim who’ve had a disastrous run in with the mirror when they were children. The incident sent Tim into an insane asylum and Kaylie through the foster care system, but after Tim is deemed sane and fit for release Kaylie quickly sweeps him up to finish a pact they made as children, to kill the evil mirror once and for all.  The Film travels between two timelines as the movie progresses, one showcasing how the siblings first encountered the evil wall ornament and how it destroyed their family, and the story of the future as the two team up to take on the evil mirror.  

The movie quickly sets up a pretty strong and interesting mythology regarding the mirror; it’s hard not to get sucked into the dark history regarding the object and its many deceased owners. The best way to get me hooked into a horror movie is to create a very strong and believable history to back up the horrible events that take place on screen. Many movies don’t do this but I think it’s a great addition to make the story (however implausible it may be) seem all the more realistic. The last movie I can even think of that did that successfully was the Blair Witch Project, add a great back story with an interesting plot and you already have me in the theater seats. I think that most directors focus on gore and the actual act of murder and death when it comes to any movie in the horror genre, you can throw as much blood and guts in my face if you want to but if you don’t have a good story and interesting characters to back that up than you’ve lost me (unless we’re watching a slasher flick they sort of get the exception here)

The film stars Karen Gillan who most people (myself included) know for playing Amy Pond in Doctor Who. I was very worried that the movie was going to try and capitalize on Karen success and popularity from the famous British science fiction series. I honestly thought that Whovians would be out in droves to see this film in order to support Gillan’s first major leading role in a North American feature. As much as I wanted this film to succeed because of my love for Pond and Doctor Who I knew I had to throw any preconceived notions out of my head, Oculus would have to be watched from the eyes of a first time viewer, not a fan of Doctor Who. Karen does a wonderful job in this movie, and although the entire plot does sound like some rejected Who episode she does a fantastic job as a leading lady.  My only gripe is that she acts just like Amy Pond just with an American accent. I really have never seen Gillan in anything other than Doctor Who so I guess this is just her acting style. I am highly looking forward to her villainous turn in this summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy, she looks utterly amazing in it and with Oculus under her belt I really can see Gillan branching out after 2014 is over.

Brenton Thwaites plays Tim, Kaylie’s younger brother. The past events regarding the mirror had a far more negative effect on Tim’s mind than Kaylies. Forced to undergo psychiatric therapy Time has created a lie for himself in order to cope with the supernatural events that occurred in his childhood home. Trying his best to rationalize everything (we always have to have that character in these movies) he constantly fights Kaylie trying to prove to her that there was never any supernatural entity in the house and that each horrible incident was due to their mother’s mental illness (more on her soon). He tries his best through the first two acts of the film to try and prove that maybe his sister is actually crazy, I find his character interesting because not only is he the voice of reason for the audience but also a huge hypocrite. Through the course of the movie Tim constantly tries to force his own therapy sessions down his sisters throat, trying to convince her that she has created a delusion for herself in order to cope with what actually happened inside their home, when in fact it is Tim that has covered up the truth with a much more believable and suitable lie, as we all would do in his situation.

However the real star of this film is Battlestar Galatica’s Katee Sackhoff. Sackhoff plays Marie, Kaylie and Tim’s deceased mother, who falls prey to the dark nature of the mirror and its influence over her husband Alan.  Throughout the “past” segments of the film the audience gets to unravel the mystery layer by layer of what happened to Marie and her husband Alan. Sackhoff was the most memorable part of this film in my opinion, I’ve never seen her go through the two extremes that her character undergoes through this film and it’s very disturbing and very sad to see what happens to her character. For the first time ever I can say that Katee Sackhoof is really, really creepy. Rory Cochrane, an actor I’ve practically never heard of stars in this film as Alan, the father of the family, throughout most of the movie he’s is in this daze like trance as the mirror focuses most of its time manipulating his mind to turn against his family. Think of his character as a really toned down Jack Torrence. All the actors, even to the children in the film, are fantastic! The best way to sell a horror movie is by having very great performances.

As the film progresses the line between what is a dream and what is reality quickly vanishes, this gives the film an almost hypnotic and disorienting quality. As both Kaylie and Tim slowly travel down the rabbit hole I quickly found myself beginning to question almost every scene, you never truly know what’s real and what isn’t.  Director Mike Flanagan is to thank for this because he really took this project to heart, and watching an interview with him you can really see the passion he holds for the project, this is based on his own short film remember. So you can see why he really has a passion with this particular story.

Although this movie is fairly good with a very interesting plot that reminded me of a Stephen King short story, the bottom line is that the movie isn’t really scary. I was able to come home and sleep like a baby, the film hardly even phased me. The scares which should have busted onto the screen with a scream were muddled out with a whimper. In fact one of the creepiest scenes in the entire film was shown in every single tv advertisement, and I found myself laughing near the films climax at a scene that I think was supposed to be very disturbing, unfortunately it quickly shifted into some dark comedy. Maybe I just have a really sick sense of humor, but like I said above it takes a lot to really creep me out now in a horror movie. I’ve seen almost everything there is to throw at me and unless it’s a film about Alien abductions or the film Martyrs (watch that one at your own discretion) I really can sleep soundly at night after watching a horror movie. Don’t let this get you down if you want to be creeped out, if you’re the uninitiated than this movie should provide you with enough scares, unfortunately for me it really didn’t quite cut it.

The major problem I personally had with this movie was the two separate story lines. This film is essentially two different movies in one, and frankly one is far more interesting and entertaining than the other. I was far move invested in the Katee Sackhoff story than the Karen Gillan one, the subject matter that was presented in the past segment was pretty disturbing regarding Sackhoff’s character and I think that the movie would have better been off focusing on this story rather than the main “future” narrative. The movie does try its best to juggle the two stories but I found that every time it cut from the one story to the other I was thrown right out of the movie.  It is a very interesting dynamic but when almost all of the scares in the film are presented in the past why focus on the future? I found that after the first hour the main story really became uninteresting.

The other major problem with this movie is that the ending is highly predictable. Now I understand that many horror movies are predictable but if you have half a brain you can call how this entire movie is going to play out the moment the two main characters meet up to fight the mirror. After that the movie just sort of ends, I was left with a big sigh of disappointment because the ending of this movie was very underwhelming. I’m finding that a lot of movies I’ve seen lately have had very uninspired endings, I think Flanagan got too caught up in weaving to separate stories that there really was no other way to end the movie, that’s why this would have served better if the film focused on the past segments more than the future.

Although the movie does have its fair share of problems Oculus is a pretty entertaining ride. The acting is top notch and the story is pretty interesting, I would have rather rented this or watched it on Netflix than paid full price, but that’s the price you pay when you gamble with a newly released film in theaters. I give Oculus a

6.5/10

It’s not completely horrible, like I said I just think that the children story was the better segment, the movie just got lost trying to juggle between the two separate movies and was just not scary but it was nowhere near as horrible as I thought it was going to be.