Writer(s): Flanagan, and Jeff Howard, based on a short film by Flanagan and Jeff Seidman
Starring: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, and Rory Cochrane
Have you ever heard two people arguing over something so
pointless that you couldn’t take a side, and you just wanted both of them to be
wrong? Well then you’ve seen the first
hour of Oculus. And if you’ve seen a
movie so desperate to mask the formulaic conventions of its material within
layers and layers of hallucinations and flashbacks, then you’ve seen the
rest. This is a movie with nothing to
say, and it says it over an agonizing hour and forty minutes. If you have any self-respect, do yourself a
favor and stay away.
The aforementioned argument is between Kaylie and Tim
Russell, two siblings who witnessed the terrible demise of both of their
parents when they were younger. Tim, who
couldn’t have been more than 10 years old at the time, even served time in a
juvenile detention center for his perceived part in the crime. But Kaylie believes there was something
sinister that caused the violence, and immediately after Tim is released, she
summons him to the fateful home that contained that horrifying scene several
years ago.
Kaylie, you see, believes that an accursed mirror, called
the “Lasser glass” after the first person that succumbed to its evil, was
responsible for the family’s sudden change in behavior. She wants to destroy it once and for all, but
first she must get her hands on it. This
turns out to be no problem: She happens to work at an auction firm, where it is
up for sale. Since it has a crack, she
simply says she will drive it herself to the repair center, and then just takes
it to the old house. Well that was certainly
easy!
At the house, Tim finds that Kaylie has been prepping a room
to capture their spiritual tormentor:
There are three digital cameras installed, capturing multiple angles of
the room, as well as thermometers that sound an alarm if the room temperature
shifts five degrees in either direction.
There’s also a kill-switch, which is an axe that will automatically
swing down to the center of the mirror if its timer is not reset every thirty
minutes. There are also alarms that
remind them to eat and drink (?), and one set every forty-five minutes to
remind them to change the tapes on their digital cameras. This mirror, you see, has the power to
disorient those that look into it, causing them to lose track of time and
space. Many of the victims were found
emaciated, dying of hunger or dehydration from forgetting to eat; these alarms
will prevent that from happening. In
theory.
The main problem with Oculus is just about
everything. Characterization is
completely weak: Kaylie comes off as a bitchy know-it-all attention whore,
especially during the scenes where she explains the past victims of the mirror
to her cameras (a scene that goes on for several minutes too long), while Tim
just sounds like a weak man in complete denial about everything. I don’t think the movie is off to a good start
when you’re not thirty minutes in, and the viewer is already hoping for the
protagonist to win…especially when said protagonist is a piece of glass. Glass, for Christ’s sake.
The writing is terrible, attempting to hide its tired
clichés in a web of flashbacks and hallucinations; its idea is to keep you
guessing as to what sequences are real, and which ones are fake. The problem is, this being “entertainment”
produced for the masses, it doesn’t take a great deal of guessing what’s
what: So when the main character takes a
bite out of a light bulb, confusing it for an apple, we know that’s fake, simply
because it can provide a quick shock before revealing that she actually is
eating an apple. But when she stabs her
fiancé in the neck, despite common sense telling us that there would be no way
a fiancé would show up at a random house without first calling, and then sneak
up on the main character for no reason, we know it’s real. Simply because it’s completely stupid. And if there’s one thing Oculus manages to
do extraordinarily well, it’s be completely fucking stupid.
I mean, it’s a movie with a piece of glass as its central
villain. I have no doubt that such a
movie can be effective, but not when it arms its characters with everything
they need to know about it. What little
creepy ambiance the movie has is completely ruined when Kaylie goes on her ten
minute schpeel about all the past victims, and her plan for stopping it; this
removes all sense of mystery from the mirror, making it just a piece of glass
with an uninspired propensity to kill people.
Yawn.
Also working against it is that it follows the typical Hollywood mantra of “more is more”, rather than the
proven effectiveness of minimalism. I
would think everyone knows by now that the more you keep from the viewer—for
example, hiding your monster in the shadows, or revealing as little of the
story as possible—is infinitely more effective when it comes to providing a
successful atmosphere of terror and dread.
I already mentioned how everything is revealed about the mirror early in
the movie. But defiant in its ignorance, Oculus is not done beating dead horses just yet: We get a glimpse of a
ghostly woman ten minutes in, and then, towards the end, she appears so often
that she should share top-billing credits with the main characters. It seriously got to the point that I laughed
when she popped up later in the movie, simply because, by then, she had already
been overused to the point that she was now little more than a gimmick; a
fallback option whenever the writers needed a quick fill-in-the-blank scare and
didn’t want to take the time to think of anything that might actually be
effective.
It’s also a bad sign when an evil character is by far the
most interesting in the film; in this case, it’s Kayley and Tim’s father (well-played
by Rory Cochrane), who quickly succumbs to the power of the mirror. While a well-made horror film would have made
his descent into madness far more gradual, Mr. Cochrane still manages to make
the most of the situation, at first becoming chillingly distant before becoming
full-on psychopath; his performance is easily the most consistent, although I
guess it could also be counter-argued that his is also the most
one-dimensional. Still, by the end, it
was the only thing that was even remotely keeping me awake.
RECAP: An absolute must-miss movie, Oculus is a movie that
must think it’s smarter than it really is; it’s excruciatingly boring, and even
within the intentionally-confusing confines of its constant flashbacks and
hallucinations, is nothing short of predictable. The lack of seriously likable characters,
partially thanks to poor writing, also hinders the proceedings. You know how little kids, once they find
something that makes you laugh, do it over and over again until you just want
to smack them? The writers had the same
mindset, only with scares; once they find something that works, they reuse it
over and over again, until it not only loses its effectiveness, but almost
devolves into self-parody. The only
plus, and it’s a moot point, is Rory Cochrane’s performance as the dad who’s
spiraling out of control. If you have
any serious interest in the horror genre, do yourself a favor and stay far, far
away from this one.
RATING: 2/10
TRAILER
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