A Look Back: Oculus

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                                            Oculus (2014) - Rotten Tomatoes

      This still is the the property of Blumhouse pictures. I think for this post I will go all in and do full spoilers on this post. This movie is six and a half years old, so you have had time.

 When the Russell's move into their new home, things are going great. It is a happy loving family, until the mirror was brought into the house. The mirror torments the parents past the brink of insanity. The children are there for the unfortunate ride. It takes two weeks for the mirror to take the parents. 

    Flash forward, the son, Tim (Brenton Thwaites) is leaving a mental hospital, for what turns out to be, the murder of his parents ( Katee Sackhoff and Rory Cochrane).  His sister, Kaylie (Karen Gillian) is set to prove that it was, in fact the mirror that killed their parents. Now, it will get difficult to explaine what happens in detail but here is an overview. Kaylie and Tim head back to their childhood home. While there it flashes back and forth through time telling what happened that lead up to the parents death. It is also giving the progress on proving the mirror is evil. In the end the mirror tricks Tim into killing Kaylie and he goes back to the hospital.

   This was the first big step in into the horror genre for Mike Flanagan, who wrote and directed this film. For those who are unaware, he goes on to direct things like "Hush", "Gerald's Game", "Doctor Sleep", and "Haunting of Hill House". So , it is fair to say we are dealing with a modern horror master. How does his first time out fare?

  One thing that I have been unclear as to who, or what was actually the villain of this film because something has to be pulling the strings. Is it better to not know who it is? Maybe I was not really paying attention, or I didn't want to. I think that the mirror was haunted by the dead. Thinking about it I think that it being a mystery would work better. Ambiguity, helps your scary cause.

   In my own personal taste, it is hard for me to get behind films that go forward  and backwards in time throughout. This film does do that a lot, but the transitions are so nice that I did not really mind it. I think if you screwed that up the film would not have worked.

  Horror movies always get that big question, Well is it scary? I have talked about this, in past posts in this blog. I think that it is a mixed bag for this film.  There was a mix of genuine scares and jump scares. I very much enjoyed the genuine moments. When it came to the jump scares, you could see them coming. In a sense, scares for this, came as a mixed bag.

   I would like to highlight one specific performance of the  film. Katee Sackhoff kills it as the mother in "Oculus". She is the one that gets the most work in the twisted sense. She shines when she is descending into madness. After her death she is great as a haunter. 

   I  think this is a good start to what has turned out to be a great horror career. 

GRADE:B    

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