Oculus

what the fudge, this is underrated 🔥🔥

One of the worst horror movies I've ever seen so far. An awful plot based on empty suspense scenes only. A hasty and disappointing ending that simply made its earlier suspense totally meaningless, and left the audience with a sense of betrayal because you were led to expect something grand but all you got in the end is 'That's it? But why???' However, if you have nothing else to do and expect very little, then it could be one of your options for a Friday night... but it's a not movie that you'd want to watch again! My own standard for good horror movies would be 'What Lies Beneath' and 'The Others'. It's important to produce a solid story that explains and signifies the earlier suspense moments. It makes the audience think and love to watch it again with family and friends.

It's not that it was poorly done or acted, in fact, the acting was quite strong; but everything was too predictable for me. The parallels drawn between the past and present was interesting, but ultimately pointless because you already know the path the past storyline takes as it's conclusion is already stated in the beginning of the movie. The differing viewpoints between the siblings was far more interesting, but never fully utilized. The plot failed more than anything; for a supposedly bright girl to devise such a poor "plan" to defeat a mirror that manipulates people. As the mirror manipulates people, there was a HUGE lack of foresight in her plan to begin with. And the moment you see the incredibly stupid "insurance" setup she's done, you wonder why she doesn't just release it herself to begin with - which is when you realize it's a cheap plot device for one of them to die.

I cannot believe that people are giving this movie low ratings. As an avid horror movie fanatic,it takes a lot to freak me out in a movie and this movie not only disturbed me it stood out to me.This movie is based off of psychological mind tricks and you will feel as if you are being deceived by the mirror.This does not get its horror based off of cheap jump out scares or gore, it messes with you so you no longer know what's real and what's not. While the ending was very abrupt,I love how the whole film mirrors itself in the past and that the two story lines interconnect.This may not be for everyone, but I can say that this movie is psychologically terrifying. This generation is used to over used gore and predictable horror, but this movie is different than that. Despite what others say it is not just another scary movie. I left the theater afraid after all of the illusions the movie pushes you through. It is slow, yes, but it is full of suspense and the slow dread adds to the plot. I bet the people who rate this low are into the shock factor and gore of other horror movies. Give it a chance.

"Oculus" is a fairly slow paced horror movie that comfortably settles into that slow pace right from the beginning and then never really accelerates. That being said, then it is not actually a bad thing, because that slow pace does add an element of oddity to the movie. What didn't really go well with me in this movie was its predictability. You saw things coming a mile away, and that left out some rather great moments that could have become scare moments or moments to throw the storyline way off the predictable course it was heading down. The acting in the movie was one of the brighter points throughout the movie, because for a horror movie then "Oculus" was horribly devoid of scary moments and things that will make you check twice under the bed or curl up when something sounds in the hallway. The storyline did have some adequate moments. And I did like the thing about the entire 'haunting' or whatever it was, taking place around an object; in this case the old mirror. And the camera-work throughout the movie was quite good as well, sort of had that feeling like the audience was right there in the house with the brother and sister. And the intermingling and switching between the present and past was also a great touch to the movie. Just a shame that the movie was so predictable and anything less than scary. As such, "Oculus" scores a mere 4 out of 10 stars from me. It really did have potential, but director Mike Flanagan really didn't fully extract all that this movie could have been. I am sure that it is scary for a younger audience, but for someone as hardened and seasoned to horror movies as me, then this was a mere dipping of the toes into the sea of horror.

The 2 stars are for what was an intriguing setup that positioned itself to resolve by way of a clever or satisfying ending based on the rules the film setup for itself. Disastrously, however, the finale of the film completely abandons all the "rules" it setup for the situation. Possible spoilers follow.... The protagonist establishes that this evil mirror has "predictable" behavior and the entire film fortifies that theory. In the current as well as the historical cases, the plants wither on cue, people dehydrate for some reason before this thing, and it protects itself if someone attacks it, etc... However, just as another commenter pointed out, they knew the thing had a range of "power" of about 30 feet, inside of which, it would use the power of suggestion or whatever to make the person miss-hit or just not strike. So why not take it out with a rifle? Additionally, the very last few minutes of the movie shifts into a huge film violation, which is to simply create illusions. What the viewer and characters are seeing aren't really there, but sometimes, it is really there. There is no consistency as to when something is there but really isn't or when something is really there but we and the characters can't perceive it. There is no consistency with using a camera to see what is real or not either. So basically, the writers of the film created a canvas from which they allowed themselves to do absolutely anything they wanted. This is Deus ex Machina to the extreme. So they just write the characters perceiving themselves to kill the mirror when in reality they are hallucinating and one of them ends up getting killed. It is simply poor writing, and a disastrous, unsatisfying ending. Frankly, with all the hallucinations and illusions the writers set up by this point, we, the viewers, don't even have good reason to believe anything in the movie really happened. What's to stop them from making a sequel that says the last 10 minutes of the movie were just the protagonists' daydream, they snap out of it and resume the movie where they snap out of it. There is nothing to stop the story from going that direction if the writers' feel like it because they established anything goes, we can fake anything you see, etc.... Besides all that, the acting was generally flat as well. I can't recommend it.

This was really not that bad for a horror movie. The whole mirror monster sort of thing has been done before but what made this movie refreshing to me was the complete mind trip that was going on throughout the movie. I spent more than like 3/4ths of the movie utterly confused yet it made sense by the end. It was all over the place but slowly, I was able to piece things together. I personally thought it had the right amount of horror that it was actually able to make me jump at some parts without being too cringe worthy like most horror films are. Also, I was impressed with what was done despite the simplicity of the film. Tons of thrills, tons of fun. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this.

It was 2006 when director Mike Flanagan first caught our attention. We obtained a copy of his short, Oculus: Chapter 3 and were one of the first internet reviews of the short (a favourable review in case you were wondering). We kept our eye on Flanagan through the years through his follow up projects, Makebelieve (2000), Still Life (2001) and Ghosts of Hamilton Street (2003). But it was Flanagan's 2011 film, Absentia, that really put the budding director in the limelight. Absentia was a small yet ambitious project that did its best on the festival circuit before getting some attention on VOD and DVD and was Killer Reviews' pick as the best horror film of 2011. Flanagan is back behind the camera with Oculus, a picture that was picked as one of the Elite 10 of the Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness Series. Oculus tells the story of Tim and Kaylie Russell (Brenton Thwaites, Karen Gillan). Tim has recently been released from a mental institution where he spent most of his younger years after he and his sister witnessed a deadly family tragedy that left Tim's psyche in a state of fragility. Only hours removed from the hospital, Kaylie convinces Tim that a mirror procured and displayed at the Russell household was the cause of their violent childhood. Kaylie is convinced that the mirror has a 300-year history of death and destruction and she solicits Tim's help in an attempt to confront and destroy the evil that possesses the antique mirror. Kaylie and Tim's attempts to find answers and draw out the evil lead to violent hallucinations and flashbacks that both siblings in danger and challenge the sanity of the recuperating Tim. As their night alone with the mirror draws long, Kaylie and Tim soon learn that the mirror is still the dominant force and their attempts at closure soon become a race for survival. If Absentia was Flanagan's Star Wars, then Oculus is his Empire Strikes Back. A better more polished film, Oculus was as eerie and involving as it was particularly complex in its non-linear storytelling. Much like Absentia, Oculus is intelligent in its unravelling and doesn't cater to the microwave generation's want for a high body count while still delivering the goods. The acting was stellar with familiar faces Rory Cochrane (CSI: Miami) and Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) complementing the adult Gillan and Thwaites). But is was the performance of the younger Kalie (Annalise Basso) that steals the movie with a virtuoso performance that demonstrates the young actor's range. Horror fans that have longed for a good and clever thriller involving ghosts and the paranormal will have their thirst quenched with the smoothness of a 12-year-old Scotch. Oculus is everything we could have hoped for from the no-longer-unknown Flanagan. It is a superior thrill ride that will challenge audiences to keep up with the fast moving plot developments while delivering upon an onion layered type screenplay that will keep your guessing not only in what happens next, but if what is happening is even real.

When I first read a slew of positive reviews in 2013 about Oculus, I really wanted to check it out. I really enjoy the horror film genre however it's a real cynical bunch of viewers ("not scary enough", "not enough gore", "this has been done before"), and with the reviews coming down like "never seen anything like this", I was interested and skeptical. Oculus is a slow-burn. It's slow and keeps to this pace throughout the film. This isn't the Conjuring which is pretty much fast paced... this reminded me of a mix Last Exorcism of Emily Rose and perhaps the Orphanage. You will either get really interested in how creepy the film gets or not. You will either really dig the layers of how things work in the horror realm or try to poke holes through everything (ex: 30 ft safe radius). The genius of Oculus isn't the concept (haunted mirror) but the screenplay of disjointed story telling and flashbacks mixing into a coherent and perhaps a complex story. Think of it like a toned down Inception. It's effective because you eventually feel and question what is reality and not. This is above mediocre but perhaps not for the mainstream. It's a great refreshing horror film.

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