OCULUS
Ten years ago, tragedy struck the Russell family, leaving the lives of teenage siblings Tim and Kaylie forever changed when Tim was convicted of the brutal murder of their parents. Now in his 20s, Tim is newly released from protective custody and only wants to move on with his life; but Kaylie, still haunted by that fateful night, is convinced her parents' deaths were caused by something else altogether: a malevolent supernatural force unleashed through the Lasser Glass, an antique mirror in their childhood home. Determined to prove Tim's innocence, Kaylie tracks down the mirror, only to learn similar deaths have befallen previous owners over the past century. With the mysterious entity now back in their hands, Tim and Kaylie soon find their hold on reality shattered by terrifying hallucinations, and realize, too late, that their childhood nightmare is beginning again...
Initial release: April 3, 2014 (Los Angeles)
Director: Mike Flanagan
Running time: 105 minutes
Screenplay: Jeff Howard, Mike Flanagan
Producers: Trevor Macy, Marc D. Evans
A woman tries to exonerate her brother, who was convicted of murder, by proving that the crime was committed by a supernatural phenomenon.
Director: Mike Flanagan
Writers: Mike Flanagan (screenplay), Jeff Howard (screenplay), 2 more credits »
Stars: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff | See full cast and crew »
Oculus is a 2013 American psychological horror film directed by Mike Flanagan.The movie had its world premiere on September 8, 2013, at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, and received a wide theatrical release on April 11, 2014.The film stars Karen Gillan as a young woman who is convinced that an antique mirror is responsible for the death and misfortune her family has suffered. The film is based upon an earlier short film by Flanagan, Oculus: Chapter 3 - The Man with the Plan.
Directed by Mike Flanagan
Produced by Marc D. Evans
Trevor Macy
Written by Mike Flanagan
Jeff Howard
Based on Oculus: Chapter 3 - The Man with the Plan
by Mike Flanagan
Starring Karen Gillan
Brenton Thwaites
Rory Cochrane
Katee Sackhoff
Music by The Newton Brothers
Cinematography Michael Fimognari
Edited by Mike Flanagan
Production
company Blumhouse Productions
WWE Studios
Intrepid Pictures
Distributed by Relativity Media
Release date(s)
September 8, 2013 (TIFF)
April 11, 2014 (United States)
Running time 103 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $5 million
Box office $34,036,164
A woman tries to exonerate her brother, who was convicted of murder, by proving that the crime was committed by a supernatural phenomenon.
Despite first-hand speculation, Oculus isn't your average scary movie although its genre is definitely standard horror. Oculus is a reflexive act on the form of horror without the overweight of an allegory, which has always been the magic screwdriver behind the Pop mechanism. The film starts as a sequel, from a film you haven't seen but certainly from an archetypal pound of the haunted object subgenre: here, some distant relative to some killer in a mirror, or any aggravating Poe's cheerfulness. By straightforwardly cutting to the second episode of this arc, it eases the mind, and also it makes a difficult promise to keep, that it is innovative enough not to bother with a classical origin story ; in a way that you won't suffer the code but only enjoy the entertainment coming from the archetype, only the Dark Knight without Batman Begins if you like.
The narrative strength is this, Oculus starts from the sequel intercalated in the prequel. You could call it flashbacks but why use these flashbacks since you already know what happened in the past through the premise ? In fact, it does better than flashbacks. Both of these story lines will fuel each other until they become one overpowered engine. What could be Oculus's downfall becomes its grace when it chooses to integrate both story lines at once, until they mix so deep that they echo their brutal respective end. Fatality will ensue.
Is the mirror actually doing something ? Even with its nasty resumé of demonic doings, it seems only to act with people complicit (it dehydrates, people forget to eat, which is the main job of a good reflection in a way). Take narcissism for instance: is it a narcissic reflection acting on you or are you acting narcissic? That's another hard promise from the movie. You will see monsters, corpses and ghosts the mirror have ended up possessing, but everything could just be a matter of perception. Only the being acts, not the objects. Maybe a haunted object is able to invade your mind when you're in relation with it, but it's powerless on its own. It needs you. A doll would have been a powerless object on that matter, but a mirror ? In it there's only a reflection, your act, the desired landscape you put in front of him. Only this time it's a pretentious one, as the tag-line blare : 'you see what it wants you to see.' The Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard script never make it sound Kubrickian or allegoric because it's an entertainment business. So it's very quick at telling, without suspending its rhythm over equally deserving points : is the father a serial killer ? Are the kids really making a propaganda to unguilt the fact they killed their father after he killed their mother ? Is it just a family of wackos ? Cold as the eye of a murderer, it keeps advancing to its inevitable purpose.
Mike Flanagan had made a short film I haven't seen, called 'Oculus 3', back in 2006, where he created that plot, of someone trying to prove there's a supernatural force in the mirror, and that it is responsible for killings. Time serves writing well, as it does with maturity. The plot certainly gained a lot of ease over its conceptualism, to fully deliver its most primitive and brutal potential. The design of the Oculus narrative, which seem effortless, is as elusive to create as it is truly brilliant to watch.
In truth, I think it would be close to impossible to come up with this writing without an instinct beyond technique. It comes deep from an unexplainable spark of genius. Take a pen and a white page, you will be closer to write Conjuring 2 than any Oculus film. It will be lightyears of rewrite and reflexivity in front of you before that.
No one asked Oculus to be that good, I suppose not even the Insidious and Paranormal Activity producers behind Oculus. It just needed to be a house and a mirror with ghosts, a-la James Wan from recent memory (who does his job extremely well). That's where Oculus hits. How come ? How come it is that good ? On a personal perspective, I left the theater still shackled to the Oculus like a prisoner to his steel chair. Was I hallucinating or have I really left the theater ? Added to the puzzlement of past and present, the doubts over whether events actually happen in the story triggered a reaction of perplexity over my own sensations minutes after the credits rolled. Was it the film, or was it me ? The film certainly needed its audience to create that sensation.
At the end of all things, Oculus is a meta-horror-movie that doesn't feel meta, letting you deal with its maleficious architecture. And by being meta on horror, it ends up being meta about cinema itself.
The narrative strength is this, Oculus starts from the sequel intercalated in the prequel. You could call it flashbacks but why use these flashbacks since you already know what happened in the past through the premise ? In fact, it does better than flashbacks. Both of these story lines will fuel each other until they become one overpowered engine. What could be Oculus's downfall becomes its grace when it chooses to integrate both story lines at once, until they mix so deep that they echo their brutal respective end. Fatality will ensue.
Is the mirror actually doing something ? Even with its nasty resumé of demonic doings, it seems only to act with people complicit (it dehydrates, people forget to eat, which is the main job of a good reflection in a way). Take narcissism for instance: is it a narcissic reflection acting on you or are you acting narcissic? That's another hard promise from the movie. You will see monsters, corpses and ghosts the mirror have ended up possessing, but everything could just be a matter of perception. Only the being acts, not the objects. Maybe a haunted object is able to invade your mind when you're in relation with it, but it's powerless on its own. It needs you. A doll would have been a powerless object on that matter, but a mirror ? In it there's only a reflection, your act, the desired landscape you put in front of him. Only this time it's a pretentious one, as the tag-line blare : 'you see what it wants you to see.' The Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard script never make it sound Kubrickian or allegoric because it's an entertainment business. So it's very quick at telling, without suspending its rhythm over equally deserving points : is the father a serial killer ? Are the kids really making a propaganda to unguilt the fact they killed their father after he killed their mother ? Is it just a family of wackos ? Cold as the eye of a murderer, it keeps advancing to its inevitable purpose.
Mike Flanagan had made a short film I haven't seen, called 'Oculus 3', back in 2006, where he created that plot, of someone trying to prove there's a supernatural force in the mirror, and that it is responsible for killings. Time serves writing well, as it does with maturity. The plot certainly gained a lot of ease over its conceptualism, to fully deliver its most primitive and brutal potential. The design of the Oculus narrative, which seem effortless, is as elusive to create as it is truly brilliant to watch.
In truth, I think it would be close to impossible to come up with this writing without an instinct beyond technique. It comes deep from an unexplainable spark of genius. Take a pen and a white page, you will be closer to write Conjuring 2 than any Oculus film. It will be lightyears of rewrite and reflexivity in front of you before that.
No one asked Oculus to be that good, I suppose not even the Insidious and Paranormal Activity producers behind Oculus. It just needed to be a house and a mirror with ghosts, a-la James Wan from recent memory (who does his job extremely well). That's where Oculus hits. How come ? How come it is that good ? On a personal perspective, I left the theater still shackled to the Oculus like a prisoner to his steel chair. Was I hallucinating or have I really left the theater ? Added to the puzzlement of past and present, the doubts over whether events actually happen in the story triggered a reaction of perplexity over my own sensations minutes after the credits rolled. Was it the film, or was it me ? The film certainly needed its audience to create that sensation.
At the end of all things, Oculus is a meta-horror-movie that doesn't feel meta, letting you deal with its maleficious architecture. And by being meta on horror, it ends up being meta about cinema itself.
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