Scaring people has become a lucrative business over the years and decades since Hollywood first embraced the concept of fear for fun. Some of the most profitable contemporary films in terms of investment-to-return ratio have been horror films. In theory, this sounds like a good thing. Unfortunately, profitability does not always equate to a film being a creative success. For those looking for casual scares that appeal to little more than our base reflexes, similar to riding a roller coaster, there is no shortage of options on the market. However, for those of us looking for something more in our horror films, the selection is more limited.
I am happy to report that OCULUS satisfies that craving rather well. No. It’s not a perfect film, but few are these days. That really should go without saying anymore. The film’s marketing proudly announces “from the producer of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and INSIDOUS.” Try your best to take this with a grain of salt. Each of those films carry their own merit, and certainly fit well within the same genre wheelhouse, but refrain from allowing the franchise stigma to cloud or influence your opinion before seeing the film.
OCULUS is not the most original story at its core, playing on a number of popular and recognizable themes. However, the method by which the story is told is rather unique and definitely engaging. Far from linear and disjointed by design, the film leaps forward and backward in time between the present day and childhood for our two main characters. Kaylie, played by Karen Gillan, is an attractive young redhead engaged to the owner of an auction house by whom she is employed. Tim, played by Brenton Thwaites, is her slightly younger brother, recently released on his twenty-first birthday after having spent time under psychiatric care.
Kaylie and Tim have a secret. As children, their parents died and, despite the incredibly horrific events that led to their deaths, Tim ultimately was blamed for murdering his parents. The fantastic truth landed Tim in a mental hospital and prompted Kaylie to commit herself to keeping the siblings’ promise to destroy the entity responsible for the death of their parents. Kaylie’s journey of supernatural vengeance begins with a beautifully dark and ornate antique mirror that once adorned the wall of her father’s home office and has recently been sold by her fiancé’s auction company.
Directed and co-written by Mike Flanagan, who last previously ABSENTIA (2011), OCULUS works on the viewers’ mind in much the same way the mirror twists and pries on Kaylie’s and Tim’s minds. Truth and reality, time and memory, these are tools by which the entity uses to protect itself and wreak havoc on the lives of those who possess the mirror. The origin and story of the entity, for the most part a great mystery, does have a name revealed most briefly and without much ordeal. Marisol. Perhaps the filmmakers felt this was of little importance, but I feel if more attention had been given to the antagonist’s back-story the film would have been that much more engaging.
Steven Spielberg’s classic JAWS comes to mind, not directly, but when explaining the relative absence of Marisol from the film. Like minimizing our visual exposure to Bruce the shark, the viewer is not overexposed to Marisol, instead leaving much to the imagination and focusing on the mystery and suspense that actually drives the film. OCULUS does not delve too deeply into the back-story of Tim’s and Kaylie’s lives, outside of the events that led to their parents’ deaths. The frightening flavor of the film is not seasoned so much by knee-jerk scares and cheap thrills, but rather by a sense of the unknown powered by disorientation and distraction. Just as Marisol keeps the siblings’ distracted from their goal of destroying her, the film keeps the audience distracted from its flaws and weaknesses by immersing the audience into a more cerebral and visceral experience.
For the wannabe ghost hunters out there, pray you never encounter the likes of Marisol. One of the most intriguing elements of OCULUS is how formidable a foe she turns out to be, as creative and patient as she is brutal. Despite its correlation to films such as PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and INSIDIOUS, OCULUS actually has far more similarities to that of THE RING, both in it’s evil antagonist and in the type of fear the film instills in the viewer. The modern meets Gothic mood of the film is enhanced by the cinematography of Michael Fimognari, experienced in the genre, and original music from The Newton Brothers.
In retrospect, given time to reflect and analyze the film, OCULUS is engaging as an in-the-moment cinematic indulgence. It will surely hold up to a second viewing as a way to watch for details missed in the original viewing, but I question the longevity of the film’s ongoing appeal. Ultimately, how the film ends in general is more predictable than the details of how that ending plays out. From early on in the film, the audience gets a sense of what must inherently happen, but it’s the thrill of watching that inevitability unfold before us that is as enticing as it is appalling, but isn’t this truly at the core watching any good horror film?
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
