Spoilers like to stare into mirrors and reflect.
Whenever I feel myself stuck in a rut with bad movies, I find it refreshing to go back a few years. I have a stack of movies that I’ve mentally put off for a slow week. This is one is not even that old, but it does show up now and then. It never dawned on me that it is an early Mike Flanagan film until I saw the credits. It also becomes rather obvious later as he goes into his now token timeline switch. It’s less prevalent at the start, but eventually it takes over the premise.
Oculus (2013) was directed by Mike Flanagan, who wrote it with Jeff Howard and Jeff Seidman. Kaylee Russell (Karen Gillian) is finally reunited with her brother Tim (Brenton Thwaites) after he’s spent years locked away for murder when they were both younger. Kaylee has been planning to prove the events that led to their parents’ death were due to a supernatural entity that resides in an old mirror. For that reason, she has obtained the antique and set up cameras to record any activity.
The storytelling technique will soon take over as we see into the past at their young selves as they grow up with their parents Marie (Katee Sackhoff) and Alan (Rory Cochrane). Alan will slowly isolate himself in his study, where the mirror seems to entice him to alienate his family. Marie will become increasingly paranoid (technically she’s got every right to be) and unhinged. The timeline then starts to jump back and forth as Kaylee’s and Tim’s memories seem to interact with their modern selves.
It’s not bad, but I couldn’t help the wasted potential of the mirror itself as an element of horror. There are so many cool illusions that I expected but the focus is basically on anything else. Unfortunately this now is sort of pushing me into starting a trend for evil mirrors in cinema. However, this is still a pretty solid horror vehicle, although the ending is sort of anticlimactic. It’s both expected and extensively warned upon than the reality is distorted and yet we still fall in the same trap.
Lightly recommended with reservations. If you’re a Flanagan fan, you can probably get a lot more mileage out of it. Otherwise, it’s still a scary vehicle which plays with the family dynamic and breaks the usual sacred infallible wisdom of parenthood. Worth a watch for a slow day, but don’t expect too much out of the mirror as a terror plot device.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 