Review of Oculus (2014) by Cole W — 22 Sep 2016

In a day and age where horror that feels original is more and more rare, Oculus comes along and proves that all it takes is a director with a voice: in this case, that director is sophomore director Mike Flanagan. Following his low-budget debut Absentia three years prior, Flanagan firmly establishes himself as a horror director to keep an eye on. With Oculus, he really puts us in the shoes of the two lead siblings (Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites) struggling to solve the mystery of their parents' (Rory Cochrane, Katee Sackhoff) deaths eleven years prior, in that a good majority of the scares are completely psychological. The movie does a great job of setting up an atmosphere that leads to a lot of questioning about what's reality and what's just an illusion caused by the mysterious mirror that may or may not be causing all of the chaos. One scene in particular, involving an apple and a lightblub, is really effective, even in spite of it clearly being set up. Flanagan finds a nice mix of familiar jump scares and silent scares here as well: they way many unnerving images are shown with no loud scare really builds a sense of dread, and makes the jump scares feel earned.

Equally impressive is how Flanagan handles the narrative. The film runs two storylines simultaneously, the present day story of Kaylie and Tim Russell looking into the mystery of the mirror and the events from their past leading up to the present day, and constantly jumps back and forth between them. While there's occasionally a slight moment of confusion in how we've transitioned from one storyline to the other, Flanagan almost seamlessly crafts one continuous narrative from these two separate stories. Kaylie and Tim's opposing views on the mirror creates a nice dynamic between the two characters, and both Gillan and Thwaites turn in strong performances with a lot of emotion infused into the more harrowing sequences of the movie. The focus on character alongside atmosphere makes for a very balanced film that is one of the finest in recent years.