Well it is April and Hollywood has thrown out another of their quarterly ghost/demon possession/haunting movies. This time it is Oculus and I chose to go see it? Why? Well there was a commercial where Karen Gillan (one of the two main characters) goes to eat an apple and instead eats a light bulb. That looked suitably creepy and I like me some creepy.
Ok, so the crux of the film is about a brother and sister whose dad went cocolabonza and killed their mom and then offs himself. The brother is getting out of the loony bin and seems to have been there since the killing. The sister is marries and working in some sort of rare antiquities business. There is also this cool looking mirror that is involved with the family as well. So….the siblings meet up to discuss the events and discover that this mirror has a history of killing its owners, their plants and pets. That is where the story starts to get interesting. The sister wants to destroy the mirror and has gone a little O.C.D. with the how and why. The brother thinks she is nuts, as he would know, since he just left the loony bin. Then things go all sideways as the haunted demon mirror starts to do its mojo.
What follows is the standard haunted tale, but with a bit of a slant. See the story is told through a non-linear wibbly wobbly timey wimey fashion. The tale jumps from childhood past to sibling present. It was a really cool way to tell the story. Sure it might confuse or irritate some, but I dug it. It made you not really sure what was going on when. It helped to build suspense without just having loud music, loud noises, or quick jump cuts for scares.
The best parts for me were number one, the fact this was rated R. I thank whomever chose this rating. Next is the fact this was not shot with a handy camera or spastic camera. I am so sick of the constant motion and bouncy camera filming “style.” By the gods that is just so overused and incredibly annoying. There is a time and place for it Hollywood. That time and place is not in every other movie (especially horror). Third this was not a found footage movie. Lord why is every other horror movie a found footage movie? Fourth, there is some good creepy here and that is always fun. The blood and guts is very tame. The scares are a bit predictable, but still good for getting some people to jump, which is always awesome. Finally, the motives for the evil mirror are never discovered (sorry if this spoils anything) and I liked that too. This is evil why? Not sure? Yet it looks cool and makes Katie Sackhoff go crazy all crazy face.
There are a few downers though. The specter ghost zombie monsters felt reused. They have that grey and black coloring that was in the Ring and ton of other movies around that time. I could do without another grey skinned human ghost monster with black hair. This film is also left open for a sequel and that would probably be of the found footage variety. I have no want or need to see Oculus 2: Through the Looking Glass or whatever else they will call it.
There is some good creepy here and crazy way to tell the story. It might not be the best horror movie ever, but it was a good time. Plus it now gives me a reason not to shake my head and sigh at the term Oculus anymore. The dungeon in Warcraft with the same name is one of the worst. This movie is tons better than that pile of turd.
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