Oculus (2013)
The Gist
The Mirrored: Karen Gillan (Kaylie); Brenton Thwaites (Tim); Katee Sackhoff (Marie); Rory Cochrane (Alan); Annalise Basso (kid Kaylie); Garrett Ryan (kid Tim)
My Take: Is it just me or are we lacking some truly good horror movies these days? It could just be me since I haven’t been watching many movies lately (books good. fresh air good) and what I have watched is unimpressive. ‘Open Grave‘ was disappointing, I didn’t finish the Nazi zombie flick ‘Outpost: Black Sun‘, again. Which leads to Oculus. Eleven years after the deaths of her parents, Kaylie Russell is determined to prove that her Father was possessed by an evil entity that lives within an antique mirror and not responsible for the horrors that befell her family and led to her little brother Tim committing murder at the age of 10. And when I say she wants to prove it, I mean she is balls out, hardcore obsessed with proving the supernatural events that took place using cameras to track events, alarm clocks to remind her to eat and drink and other mechanisms to help try to retain her sanity and destroy the evil spirit. The two key elements for her task are the haunted mirror (which she obtains via her fiancé’s business) and her brother Tim who is recently released from an asylum after being incarcerate for the murder he committed as a boy and the crazy tale he told of ghosts and possession.
Ok, so she wants to prove her father and mother weren’t crazy and she wants to drag her brother into her insane obsession immediately after he is released and has put the traumatic events of the past behind him. She is manipulative not only with her brother but with her fiancé who has no idea what is happening or why she is borderline nuts. She seems kind of delusional about the past but that’s the thing about this flick, you don’t know what is real and what is an illusion. It totally messes with and blurs the lines of reality and the truth of what happened 11 years earlier.
Final Thoughts: Now the question – do I recommend this flick or not? I’m not making it very clear am I. Yes, I would recommend it because it does have a a few moments of creepiness and I like how it jumped from the past to the present and manipulated reality. What I wasn’t a fan of was the end. It was abrupt, somewhat predictable and not the way I would have liked to see it conclude. I was more interested in the history of the mirror than the story of the Russell family’s plight following their purchase of the mirror. The trailer for this flick makes it look like it’s filled with all kinds of creepy ghosty goodness but it really wasn’t, it was more of a mind fuck featuring the characters. Given the lack of good movies out right now, this one stands up as one to watch.
Dawning Creates 