Horror Off-Season: Oculus

At this point, there's no denying that I love Mike Flanagan (See exhibits A, and 2).  However, I was a bit anxious of what he'd do when partnered with a studio and given a budget.  Would the studio stomp on his Flanagan-ness?  Would he go crazy with the money and throw in a bunch of pointless effects?  Would telling an old story again make him just give up and get boring?

Well, he didn't.  Let's get that out of the way.  Oculus the feature is the same as Oculus the short, except it's totally different.  What we get here is a really logical expansion of the original story.  The backstory, which previously had only small hints and references, gets completely fleshed out in a way that makes total sense with the original story and fits in the context of the feature without seeming like a stretch.  All the new characters work and the twists are nice.  I liked just about everything about this movie.  It was just as scary, familiar but fresh and not predictable...just...really well done.

Being based on the original short, Oculus is about an attempt to objectively prove that a demonic mirror named the Lasser Glass is responsible for a string a murder/suicides going back over 100 years finally culminating in the deaths of the parents of the lead character(s).  However, being feature length enables the movie to spend a lot more time with everything and elaborate on the background of its extended cast.  The two biggest changes are the location and the lead character.  In the short it was only Tim Russel, but in the feature the lead character is actually Tim's sister, Kaylie.  Also, instead of the experiment taking place on what is  assumed to be neutral ground (the white room), the mirror is taken back to the Russel's house and placed back on the office wall where it previously hung.

The film itself takes place in the days following Tim's release from the mental hospital he's been undergoing treatment in since the incident with his parents.  Kaylie managed to avoid institutionalization and has been working for an auction house where she's tracked the mirror.  Tim's release happens to coincide with the auction sale of the mirror, and Kaylie seizes the opportunity to experiment on the mirror during the few days it will be allowed away from the auction house before being delivered to the next owner.  She convinces Tim, who is reluctant because of his therapy, to stay with her during the experiment.  They then repeat the setup of the short almost verbatim.

Intercut with the present day experimental footage is flashback footage of the family originally moving into the house and slowly deconstructing due to the mirror's influence.  What's interesting is that the present day sequences have much more of a subtle, vaguely uncomfortable, supernatural feel like Flanagan's previous work, while the flashbacks have a more visceral feel with gore and disgusting things.  The balance is great, especially because the creepier and more character driven present day scenes provide a great contrast for the bloody dementedness that eventually happens and makes that have a real impact.  I actually need to buy this on Blu-Ray when it comes out if for no other reason than there are bits I straight up did not see because it was so uncomfortable I had to look away.  Loved Ones, Asylum Blackout, and Martyrs all couldn't pull that off. 

Katee Sackhoff does an excellent turn as mother Marie Russel, though I would've liked to see her turn to a paranoid jealous wife a bit slower.  Rory Cochrane as Alan unfortunately never seems to sell the caring father portion either, his delivery through most of the movie is fairly deadpan.  Brenton Thwaites was a pleasant surprise as Tim.  Guy is so damned pretty I wasn't sure how well he'd be able to pull off a horror movie and emotional sibling drama but he actually did really well.  Karen Gillan performed admirably well as Kaylie.  Unfortunately, I feel like neither sibling really shined and the present day scenes really felt less interesting somehow than what was going on in the past, until the end.  They were good and they carried it well, but their scenes didn't pull me in as much as the scenes with their child actor counterparts.  I don't know if it was just Flanagan really getting into the opportunity to flesh out the world of Oculus or if the kids were just really good, but those scenes were really enjoyable.

The effects they use on the mirror ghosts as well are particularly nice and something I don't think I've seen much before.  Very creepy touch.  And I thought the direction at the end was just really compelling and totally sucked me in.  In fact, the only thing I think I was disappointed in was the big line in the original short ("I've met my demons and they are many, I've seen the Devil and he is me.") wasn't nearly as scary in the way it was delivered here.  That, and the lack of the gorgeously deranged "Finger LICKIN' GOOD!!!" line from the answering machine in the original.

To a minor spoiler:  I still dislike how quickly the experiment fell apart.  In the original it made sense despite being ultimately disappointing.  Being alone in a room with an evil demonic looking glass can be a somewhat taxing experience.  It kindof makes sense that Tim would fall asleep.  But in the feature no one falls asleep.  They just watch video of weird things, hallucinate, and then watch plants die without doing much of anything about it.  And finally, in the feature the glass suffers minor damage due to Tim shooting his insane father in front of the mirror and the glass cracking a piece off when Alan's body hits it.  The glass normally deflects attempts made to harm it fairly dramatically but it couldn't do anything about the body hitting it.  In the finale of the movie Tim activates the dead man's switch, not realizing Kaylie was standing in the way due to the mirror making him see things.  This causes a boat anchor to swing from the ceiling and hit Kaylie, killing her and smashing her into the mirror.  Given the force of a swinging boat anchor, especially one with additional weight on it, how did this not break the mirror further?  Kaylie demonstrates the pointy anchor going almost all the way into the wall behind the mirror.  It's not a light touch.  I would've loved to have seen the mirror effectively suicide itself.

--PXA