Saturday 3 October 2020

Oculus (2013)




11 years ago, Alan Russell murdered his wife Marie, and was then killed in self defence by his ten year old son Tim when he tried to kill his children.

Or at least, that's the finding of the police investigation.  Tim's sister Kaylie, who was 12 at the time of the killings, thinks otherwise.  She is sure that an antique mirror her father purchased somehow drove both Alan and Marie insane.  She has tracked dozens of cases of the mirror's owners meeting macabre fates, and has become an antiques dealer herself with the avowed intention of finding the mirror and getting irrefutable proof of its malign, supernatural powers.

And now, as Tim reaches his 21st birthday and is released from the mental institution where he has been treated for the past decade, Kaylie has located the mirror and is ready for the showdown.

Oculus is a well-crafted horror film, driven more by suspense and creepiness than gore or violence (though there is some of the latter).  It has a solid cast and a pretty tight script that does a good job of justifying the characters' actions, or failure to act.  "Why doesn't Kaylie just smash the mirror?" has a couple of different answers offered, for instance, and they hold water pretty well.

Well-crafted stuff, check it out if you want to be creeped out.

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