Reviewer: Julie Lynn Hayes

Oculus

Kaylie Russell (Karen Gillan) has an obsession  – she is determined to prove that it wasn’t her father who killed her and her brother Tim’s (Brenton Thwaites) mother, but rather supernatural forces. First she obtains the mirror once owned by her parents, at a dear price. Then she picks up her brother on his release from the mental institution where he has been incarcerated since he was a teen for the murder of his family. She needs his help and wants to prove everything to Tim as well.

Kaylie has everything set up, including multiple cameras and alarms, and even a fail-safe plan with a kill switch should everything else prove fruitless. Tim is skeptical but can’t convince his sister that she is wrong, helpless to stop her as they both recall the events that led them to this point.

Oculus flips back and forth from the past to the present, which is a little confusing at first as both Kaylie and her mom have red hair. In the past, we watch as the family unit disintegrates,  including the father’s own obsession with the mirror, the mother’s fears that he is losing him to another woman, and the helplessness of the children to do anything. Kaylie is trying to induce the mirror to kill again, and she wants to get it on video.

Oculus is certainly not a bad film, and its director, Mike Flanagan, no stranger to the genre, having also directed such films as Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Ouija: Origin of Evil. I like Karen Gillan and have ever since she played Amy Pond. But I found her character offputting her, almost like she was sleepwalking through everything. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but I couldn’t like anyone in this film and that becomes problematic when you have no one to root for.

Perhaps I couldn’t get behind the idea of the mirror itself as an evil entity – or was it something inside the mirror? Was the movie creepy? That it was. Did it hold my interest? Not really. I know there are a lot of favorable reviews, so it comes down to a matter of individual taste. And that, after all, is what reviews are about. I just couldn’t really get into it, and thought it availed itself of rather common tropes. But decide for yourself. As for me, I’ll give this film 3 Stars.