Movie Review: Oculus - the mirror crack‘d...

I've said it before and I'll say it again - when it comes to Horror movies, your mileage may vary as to the extent you find them scary, or if not at all.  For someone it might be playing on deep seated phobias or anxieties; or it could be primal fears of the dark, or strangers; or being alone; for someone else it could be taking something from everyday life and making it sinister either through supernatural or the deeds of (evil) men.  'Oculus' aims to do the latter, being the tale of a haunted mirror, responsible for several deaths over the years.  Sadly it doesn't pull off the trick of being a genuinely scary or even remotely frightening or disturbing horror; because when a horror movie tries to use something to scare us, there should be some kind of underlying logic to support it.  'Oculus' makes the cardinal sin in the genre of having central characters do something which, after post-viewing consideration, doesn't really add-up.  It undermines the whole film, but to be fair, it's not particularly frightening to even before considering this flaw.

This film tells the tale of siblings Kaylie and Tim Russell (played by Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaites respectively) who, years after the death of their parents, are reunited when the brother is released from a mental institution - you see, he shot their father, who apparently killed their mother.  His sister has spent the years tracking down what she believes responsible - a haunted mirror, and now she has her brother to help her, she is seeking to destroy the mirror, and in so doing slay the entity/demon (it's never made clear exactly what it is) responsible for their parent's death.  She takes the mirror, and her brother, back to the house where their parents died, with an elaborate plan to demonstrate that the mirror IS responsible for these deaths, and also finally destroy it - a plan involving several plants, battery powered lights, lots of cameras, and a ceiling mounted, timer triggered, spring loaded anchor (yes, you read that right).

The narrative then switches between the siblings in the present day, and ten years previous, portraying the events which lead to the deaths of their parents.  To tell this story the film employs some of the tropes of the genre - flickering lights, dead eyed ghosts (well, mirror eyed), and hackneyed jump-scares.  It never comes close to building the tension enough for most of these to really be effective, and although there are a couple of discomfiting scenes which will make you squirm (and possibly feel a little ill), this film rarely meets its potential in terms of being part of the horror genre.

It's not for want of trying though.  The film takes the time to set up the 'rules' for its supernatural activity quite well - hence the efforts Gillan's character Kaylie goes to in order to prove and document the entity.  At the same time you can't help but feel there are some missed opportunities along the way.  Her brother Tim, having spent years receiving psychiatric treatment over the events that led up to their parent's death, is sceptical and tries to convince his sister that she is suffering from a delusional recollection of what took place ten years previously.  This is an idea that could have been invested in more strongly by the writers if you ask me - to create a real sense of duality about what they are seeing as the film progresses, and from this some true mystery and suspense - which could have resulted in a truly killer twist at the end.  Similarly, given the basis is an entity/haunting originating from a mirror, there could have been some mining on the idea of reflections and a twisted version of reality - this, again, could have played back to the psychological elements the writers chose to overlook.

Doctor Who fans will be pleased to see Karen Gillan in her first major film role.  Aside form that, there‘s not much that‘s pleasing about this movie...

So instead of this, and potential for these undertones are quickly forgotten because the brother soon comes to side with his sister and join with her scheme.  The film then becomes a bit of a confusing muddle as the events of the present and ten years previous begin to seemingly overlap -though it's never clear why or for what reason - other than it's the entity 'messing with them'.  Perhaps the whole endeavour would have been lifted a little if the performances had really sold the terror (or madness) of the situation; I won't lay the blame at the leads (as a viewer of both Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who it's no bad thing to see Katee Sackhoff and Gillen on the big screen), but rather a script and direction which don't give them the opportunity to portray this effectively.

Where the whole film reveals itself as having been a pretty pointless endeavour is at the end - and here I will warn of SPOILERS!!! as I need to discuss this in some detail.  Basically the film aims to have a downer ending, as many a great horror film does - but here it makes what's gone before it feel redundant.




We end with Kaylie being killed the device she rigged to destroy the mirror is triggered by tim; the film then overlaps the scene of him being taken away by the police by the same aftermath on the night his parents died.

Now, when you think about it, there's a pretty significant logic gap here which undermines pretty much all of the film; if Gillan's character wanted to prove the haunting and destroy the mirror, she could have just left the dog, and the houseplants, and the cameras, and let the timer run out and destroy the mirror - neither she nor her brother needed to be there at all.  Now I'm not saying that many other horror films have logic gaps - but usually you can overlook them because what you've just seen has succeeded in frightening or even disturbing you; this film can't even manage that.  For me, it commits the greatest sin a horror film can - it relies on illogical actions or behaviour on the part of its characters in order to carry the narrative on.  In so doing, it shoots itself in the foot.

This film doesn‘t quite pull of the scares it wants to.  I know a Bear that‘s creepier than this...

I came out of this film feeling that I'd just wasted the last 100 minutes watching it - and that's a shame, because there is a decent idea that this film is based upon - sadly the writers didn't use it effectively or to its full potential.  If you're a seasoned horror fan, you won't find anything here that will satisfy you; if you're a fan of the leads you may feel a bit cheated too.  In all, I think the people who wrote and made this film should take a good long look at themselves in a mirror, and ask how they can do better than this next time...