The Horror Show
Oculus
Directed by Mike Flanagan
The WWE Studios isn’t what made me shy away from Oculus, the new release horror film from director Mike Flanagan. I initially shied away from the film because I didn’t want to pay to go see just another stupid ghost house film that scares with loud sounds and cheap thrills. It came advertised with an R rating and so I thought, why not? And I gave it a chance.
There’s a part of me that’s really glad I gave Oculus a chance but there’s a part of me that wants to kick myself in the teeth for it. You see, where Oculus went wrong was in being marketed as a horror film. The movie is so far from a horror film that most romantic comedies are more horrific than this film. Oculus is a psychological thriller, no more, no less. (Although it could be, but I’ll get to that later.)
We find ourselves following the two main characters, Kaylee and Tim, siblings and victims of a traumatic childhood event that involved both of their parents going insane…and a creepy mirror. We’re led to believe that Tim is criminally insane because he’s spent the last ten years of his life in an asylum for shooting his father dead. (The father that was trying to murder his sister, and who had already murdered his mother.) We’re also led to believe that Kaylee has spent the last ten years bouncing from home to home in the foster system and invested all of her time into investigating this mirror that she believes is responsible for driving her parents to madness and forcing her brother to murder their father. Kaylee picks Tim up on the day that he’s released from the asylum and informs him that they need to go back to the house and reminds him of their “promise” that they made as children; she convinces the already fragile minded Tim that returning to the exact place that caused so much anguish in their childhood is a great idea and they will prove that the spirits in the mirror are real and responsible for everything.
I wish I could say that after Tim very intelligently explains to Kaylee that all of the things that she remembers to be real from their childhood are all things made up in her damaged mind, that Kaylee listens and goes to the doctor that she was never so lucky to have as her brother was. I wish I could say that after she breaks down and almost agrees to leave with him because he reminds her that…and remember this one…mental illness runs in the family, that everything is fine and they leave the inanimate object in the house and go on their merry way. But alas, these things do not happen, because Hollywood knows we like to watch movies where people make bad decisions.
I’d like to now fall away from the details of the plot of Oculus and discuss what I feel a lot of people may have missed while watching. Yeah a couple of friends said “You’re thinking too deeply” but that’s what I do, I’m a writer. There are a few points in the film in which mental illness is brought up, no not only because Tim was in a loony bin for ten years, but it’s worth noting that it’s mentioned a few times that mental illness runs in Tim and Kaylee’s family. The movie revolves around a group of people, all connected by genetics, who develop intense paranoia, hallucinations (both visual and audible), violent outbursts, homicidal thoughts, etc. These are all symptoms of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that makes it hard to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Another characteristic of this disease is poor emotional responses to events and stimuli. Take for example Kaylee’s stone cold demeanor; she is not afraid, she is not sad, she isn’t even angry… she exhibits severe mania, going from extreme demeanor to the complete opposite while exploring the possibility of the mirror’s evil powers; she’s obsessed with the mirror that destroyed her family and her life.
Oculus has a series of flashbacks from childhood to adulthood when following the children and there are several instances in which Kaylee sees things that Tim does not. Kaylee remembers things that Tim corrects her on over and over again. For example: the dog. Tim remembers the dog being put to sleep while Kaylee remembers the mirror eating the dog. So this whole movie misrepresents Tim as the one with a serious mental illness and thrown into a mental institution while his sister, the truly sick one of the two, is left to fall further down the rabbit hole of madness. The father in the movie was not possessed by a demon in the mirror, the father was a severely mentally ill man. The mother was also not possessed by a demon in the mirror, she had mental illness. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, what are the chances that two people with schizophrenia and/or bipolar disorder get together and make babies? Well, stranger things have happened, and I mean, come on, this a movie about a mirror that possesses people.
I personally don’t feel that the whole “what’s real and what isn’t” take on the movie was done to force the evil of the mirror upon us. The father says to his daughter Kaylee at one point that “they” told him the evil was inside of him (or some bullshit along those lines). So who is “they”? That reminds me of those t-shirts I used to see in Hot Topic about the voices in my head. The “what’s real and what isn’t” aspect was done to portray the fragility of the human mind, especially when exposed to traumatic events, especially the idea that mental manipulation is extremely easy to accomplish when the mind is exposed to events that they are unable to process or simply do not want to believe to be true.
Perhaps I have looked to deeply into this movie, but perhaps I have dug up the diamond in the trash that is Oculus. If in fact this movie is indeed what it advertises itself as, a cheesy horror movie about a mirror that possesses people, then I wasted my money and my time and I’m angry with the universe for not being able to give it back to me, forcing me to rate is a 2/10. However, if this movie is what I believe it to be, a deeply intricate plot of psychological anguish that explores the terrors that the human mind can unleash upon itself, then this movie is the goods and I give it a 9/10.
Stevie Kopas, Associate Editor HMS
Ben's review of Oculus
I had the chance to check out Oculus this weekend and I have to say it certainly surprised me. I walked into the theater with tempered expectations; holding out hope based on its R rating but nervous based on its distribution partnership with WWE Films. Luckily by the time things wrapped up I wasn't angry about the price I paid for the ticket
Oculus focuses on Kaylie and Tim Russell, a brother and sister haunted by the events of their childhood. Tossed into the foster and psychiatric care systems after witnessing their father murder their mother, the two are reunited over a decade after the events when Tim is released from the mental hospital. Shortly after Tim's return, Kaylie explains that she has found the object that ruined their lives; the "Lasser Glass", and that it's time to "keep their promise".
What I expected from Oculus was 90 minutes of a family running around a house tormented by ghosts jumping out of a mirror. Lots of the tired "OMG their reflection is doing something different than they are!" scenes. Luckily, it seems director Mike Flanagan knew there were people like me out there and kept that stuff to a minimum. Instead, what we get is a smarter-than-average movie that makes highly effective use of time and intelligent cuts to disorient the viewer and create a really creepy atmosphere. It's very effective at telling the story in a disjointed fashion without getting annoying.
Rather than focus on the monster in the mirror, the movie stays glued to the Russell family's descent into madness, with Rory Cochrane doing a passable Jack Torrance impression as he slowly loses his mind. Katee Sackhoff also does an impressive job and creates some of the creepiest moments in the film. It's not a gore-fest by any means, but when the gross outs arrive they get results. There are also a lot of still camera shots in Oculus that I really appreciated, and they help to build tension nicely. There were a few scenes where Karen Gillan (Kaylie) tossed some extra ham on the plate, but they're forgivable because she also provides some darkly humorous moments too.
No spoilers here, so I'll tell you that Oculus is worth your time and money. Its faults are easily overlooked since it manages to avoid a lot of the tropes that sink so many of the current "PG-13 ghost movies" that get shoveled into theaters. It also provides some genuinely clever and scary moments that I totally didn't anticipate. Check it out if you're at all interested in a good horror flick that will mess with your head!
Guest post by Ben of Terrorphoria.com for HMS
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