Oculus
(2013) 104 Min.
Rated: R (Gore)
Country: USA
Director: Mike Flanagan
Starring: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★★☆
An evil mirror figures into the dark past of two siblings and the horrific murder of their parents.
Synopsis:
Timothy “Tim” Alan Russell (Thwaites) is discharged from a mental institution by his psychiatric Dr. Shawn Graham on his 21st birthday. His sister Kaylie Russell (Gillan) greets him and tells him that she wants to “finish what we promised”.
She has taken the mirror, The Lasser Glass, connected to the dark past that both herself and her brother experienced and put him in a mental hospital. Kaylie intends to go through with taking the mirror to their old house and dealing with the past despite having nightmares.
Kaylie has rigged the house with multiple cameras and alarms to record all evidence and to notice any temperature fluctuations. She has even set up a fail safe. A weighted anchor is attached to the ceiling and will fall and shatter the mirror if the timer is not reset. She believes the Lasser Glass contains a predictable supernatural force. The mirror itself sits in the same room covered by a cloth. It’s responsible for at least 45 deaths in its four centuries of existing.
Kaylie begins to narrate to the cameras the vivid deaths and history of the Lasser Glass. Random deaths that happened in the same building as the mirror.
Timothy believes that their father, Alan, (Cochrane) was a murderer and that he was crazy. Tim also thinks Kaylie is going too far. Tim doesn’t blame the mirror and Kaylie believes he’s forgotten the past. She invites him to smash the mirror. Tim, however, becomes distracted and talks about how he doesn’t have to smash the mirror since it doesn’t belong to them.
Kaylie brings attention to the fact that the mirror drains the life out of plants and pets first. In a flashback, it’s shown how the family dog didn’t want to play and was aggressive towards the mirror. Tim feels that Kaylie is misremembering how the events unfolded. He felt that the dog was sick and that wasn’t brought home one day to be euthanized by a vet since he was deathly ill.
Kaylie and Tim continue to argue and leave the office with the mirror, however when they return they find the two main cameras facing each other. When they replay the video it shows them placing the cameras together while they argue even though they both don’t remember it happening.
Tim tries to place a call while outside, but when he hears Kalie calling his name he realizes he’s in the house against the door.
In a flashback their mother, Marie, (Sackhoff) is alone drinking wine while Kaylie and Tim wonder where their father, Alan, is. Tim tells his mother he thinks a woman lives in the office and when Marie checks she finds papers filled with the name Marisol.
Marie freaks out and tries to throw a paperweight at the mirror, but it misses. This causes a surge of energy to convince Marie that her c-section scar is infected and opened back up. When her children check on her she chokes Tim and the kids run to hide. At that moment Alan returns home and Marie attacks him instead. After a while Alan tries to call the emergency number and instead he hears the whispers of the mirror. He decides to chain Marie up in the bedroom.
Alan forbids the children from going to the bedroom and ignores his children. They don’t get enough to eat and Kaylie, in particular, is fed up with their treatment. She goes into the bedroom to see her mother is chained to the wall.
After several attempts to call doctors but getting nowhere they go to their neighbor’s house. Their neighbor, however, is easily convinced by Alan that everything is alright.
Tim, in present time, keeps seeing his past self and Kaylie also sees broken plates like when her mother was chained up. She gets surprised and stabs what she thinks is her menacing father but seems to be her fiance checking on her. After looking at the body through her phone’s camera she feels like it’s really her fiance and is devastated.
Both she and Tim walk out of the house but see themselves standing in front of the mirror waiting to get killed by the weighted anchor.
The past replays again in their mind and mirrors a bit what is happening to them now. They are both afraid of their father with his gun and Kaylie and Tim are seeing the ghosts of Alan and Kaylie’s fiance.
There’s a flashback to where Marie, now free, attacks Kaylie and tries to choke her. She has a change of heart and releases Kaylie just as Alan shoots her. He shoots Marie several times and the kids are able to hide during this time.
In the past Alan tried to shoot Kaylie but Tim knocked the gun out of his hand and took it. Alan put the gun to his heart and pulled the trigger while Tim still held onto it.
In the present time both siblings are hallucinating. Kaylie sees her mother in the mirror waiting to embrace her. Tim sees himself alone in the room with the mirror. In a split decision of anger he forces the timer causing the weighted pendulum to swing into the mirror, but it instead hits Kaylie who is against the mirror.
Just as in the past the police arrive and they take Tim away, but unlike then he is the sole survivor and in the window of the house he sees the specters of his father, mother and sister.
Review:
While this film is at times a little cheesy, there are parts of this film that pull it above the average haunted house fare.
Juxtaposing the past and the present and mirroring them lets the story unfold in a refreshing and far more interesting way than a linear approach.
The film was far more entertaining because of this and could be forgiven for the hokey ghosts and mild jump scares scattered throughout.
Much of the tension is built with fluctuating between the past and present scenes and how the two seem to meld and mirror each other. That’s pretty much the strong suit of this film.
Karen Gillan gives a strong performance as Kaylie. Tim’s character seems to more stumble along and get lead around by his more clever sister.
In the end, though, it’s the convincing performances given by the two young actors playing the siblings that lends a whole boatload of sympathy to the characters. They are young, innocent and having to fight for their lives against the very people who brought them to life. And of course after protecting each other they’re torn apart to live separate lives.
Overall this film is enjoyable and engaging with its unique approach to the haunted object concept in film.