[REEL QUICK REVIEW] – Oculus

Director: Mike Flanagan (Absentia)

Starring: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff

Certificate: 15

Run-time: 104 minutes

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/dYJrxezWLUk&source=uds

IN SHORT: Oculus is surprisingly intelligent, nimbly crafted and in a barren year for horror, the best of the bunch.

Eleven years after he’s released from an institution for killing his abusive father, Tim (Thwaites) is welcomed back by his older sister Kaylie (Gillan, successfully hiding her Scotch accent) who has spent those eleven long years trying to prove his innocence. Kaylie is convinced that their father’s antique mirror was responsible for the tragedy that day and with excruciating planning and a house full of digital cameras, she’s going to prove it. Oculus features two time-lines; the present and eleven years earlier. Through calculated parallel editing, director Mike Flanagan intercuts the younger versions of the protagonists with the present day creating a mind-bending and intricately detailed psychological experience.

Flanagan’s earlier directorial offering, Absentia, showed he was a film-maker who respected the craft of a well-written, tense horror movie. Oculus may be a bigger, more ambitious project but Flanagan continues to showcase his story-telling prowess. Oculus‘s brother-sister duo, Kaylie and Tim, are sympathetic protagonists with clear motivations and a tragic back story. The movie is also set in a supernaturally-cynical world; Kaylie’s research into the mirror falls upon deaf ears and Tim initially chooses to ignore her after his 11 years of therapy convince him that the haunted mirror was a ‘delusion’. Even the audience are encouraged to consider the idea that Kaylie’s obsessive rantings are a cry for a help.

Oculus‘s antagonist, an antique mirror, makes for an unstoppable adversary; it’s an omnipotent force that can distort its victims sense of reality. For example, in one particularly effective scene, Kaylie unsuspectingly bites into a light bulb that she drowsily sees as an apple. Unfortunately, because the mirror’s power is delivered through hallucinations and mind control, it’s difficult to see how any of it can be proved on camera. The goal of our protagonists seems impossibly flawed and their plight is ultimately predictable, which undermines the tension and sense of dread that was so masterfully created. Despite these drawbacks, Oculus is surprisingly intelligent, nimbly crafted and in a barren year for horror, the best of the bunch.