OCULUS PLAYS MIND GAMES WITH SMALLS

In Oculus, we follow Tim (adult Tim is portrayed by Benton Thwaites, child Tim is portrayed by Garrett Ryan) and his older sister Kylie (adult Kylie is portrayed by Karen Gillan, child Kylie is portrayed by Annalise Basso). Tim has just gotten out of a mental hospital and seems to be fully recovered from a traumatic experience him and his sister went through when they were young where their parents tried to kill them. Tim has come to terms with the assumed fact that he was the one who killed his dad, thus saving him and his sister's lives. However, Kylie still holds to her belief that it was the mirror that hung in her dad's office, an aged artifact named The Lasser Glass ( a mirror that feeds off of an organisms energy, has the ability to alter our perception of reality aka play nasty mind games, and if given enough power even has the ability to control a person. It also has a surprisingly large sphere of influence if given enough energy to feed off of), that is the real cause behind that night's events. She has managed to find The Lasser Glass and has spirited it away to their childhood home where she intends to document the mirror (via plants, a dog, and multiple cameras and computers) and the various phenomena she assumes it will create again. If anything should go wrong she has a large anchor set to smash the mirror unless she manually resets the timer it is synced to every hour . Naturally, she ropes Tim into her scheme and it isn't long before it becomes apparent that despite all her best efforts and planning, The Lasser Glass may once again have the upper hand.

Oculus certainly has a strong set-up, and at first it's almost hard to see how things could possibly go wrong with the plan Kylie has come up with. Kylie has things so meticulously planned out that it would seem pretty hard for The Lasser Glass to effectively fight back, and part of the fun of this film is seeing how the tables slowly start to turn.

Every actor in Oculus does a pretty good job with the roles they are given. Both the child versions and the adult versions of our protagonists do equally impressive performances, and Rory Cochran and Katie Sackhoff both are pretty freaky as the parents who slowly begin to spiral into madness. None of these are amazing performances mind you, but they were all much better than I expected them to be, especially by horror movie standards. Mike Flanagan definitely did a pretty impressive job  in the directors seat, as one of the screenwriters for the film (he co-wrote Oculus with Jeff Howard), and as the sole editor of the film as well (which is also top notch and enhances the film a good deal). It's not very often you get a triple threat, and I'm going to say this is one guy that we should maybe keep an eye on.

Oculus is certainly not a scary film, but it is definitely a very twisty and confusing ride. The film will put you in the position of Kylie and Tim where you too will start to question what you are seeing on screen, what time period you are watching (the film switches back and forth between the past and the present a good deal, showing what occurred when Tim and Kylie were kids and what is occurring now that Kylie is attempting to prove that The Lasser Glass is alive), and what is real or a product of The Lasser Glass' variety of tricks. Indeed by the last 20 or so minutes of the film I was pleasantly surprised to find myself sucked into the fascinating and surreal world of The Lasser Glass, where I didn't know what was up or what was down. Oculus' aim is to disorient and confuse the viewer, and it succeeds pretty damn well. Don't go in expecting answers or explanations, you'll have to come up with those on your own.

I've never been a fan of the haunted mirror horror film sub-genre but Oculus takes this stale premise and successfully breathes new life into it, crafting a fascinating film that is hard to tear your eyes away from. It also signals the arrival of a strong new horror character in The Lasser Glass, which has a rich history behind it and a vast array of mind games at its disposal. This thing isn't afraid to play dirty if that's what it takes. With a pretty good script, fantastic editing, strong acting, and an intriguing plot filled with a good deal of mystery, Oculus manages to be a very fun and surreal thrill ride that I wouldn't mind heading out to see again. It's easily one of the better modern day horror films and definitely the best haunted mirror film I've seen.

3.5 STARS