Oculus

A revelation. In a time when most viewers rate the quality of a horror film on the basis of the number and the effectiveness of the jump-scares, this weirdly told, character-centred spooky story won’t have it easy, but I couldn’t be more satisfied. It’s a about a mirror hiding an evil that gets into the heads of its owners and drives them insane, but in two timelines that Flanagan tells simultaneously and that also overlap in different ways. If I had to choose one word that would best describe Oculus, it would be “oppressive”. The characters are likeable, you really wish them a happy ending, but the evil within in the mirror is the best part. The viewer simply cannot escape the anxiety and despair. Rather than Insidious, The Conjuring and other modern horror flicks, Oculus is closer to Kubrick’s The Shining in its slow but thorough build up of a bleak atmosphere. The performances are superb without exception and the technical aspect is perfect. If you prefer unsettling slow-burns over scary attractions, don’t hesitate it for a minute. Absentia wasn’t a fluke, I’m looking forward to what’s coming next. Oculus is a successfully realised opportunity to get into the horror major leagues. (25.05.2014)

It's always gratifying to discover that I'm not the only one for whom a mirror provides an endless well of terror. An almost, almost perfect haunting that's basically only falls short of full marks by the limits of that branch of horror, but otherwise it's gratifying to see an enlightened approach for the first time in a long time to such a washed-up sub-genre to which James Wan has lately been quite vehemently adding bleach instead of flavoring. While the foreign critics were quite enthusiastic about Oculus, the audience was yawning (but it still paid off quite well). Which is a rather interesting observation given how conservative the overseas horror masses are, but the fact remains that Flanagan's opus is anything but a crowd-pleaser. *SPOILER ALERT* He’s not in a hurry to get anywhere, he doesn’t explain the causes of the evil, he tortures the heroes, and the central mirror actually plays with them throughout the entire film, only to win in the end. Simple as that. Once the film closes in on the confines of the house, we find out very soon that nothing we're seeing may be as it's presented to us, and the inner game has essentially no set rules because, in short, the mirror is messing with the psyches of the characters through whose eyes we're watching the whole thing unfold. The flashbacks of the protagonists, like little children watching the brutal disintegration of their family, are perfectly interwoven with the contemporary events. The past known to the protagonists isn't explained at the beginning (only its denouement – the guy has been in juvie for 11 years and his sister has an obsessive plan to publicly expose and destroy the mirror) and evolves along with the current events, making the ending essentially two bravura intertwined plot climaxes, only to merge into one during a depressing complete ending. The parts with the chained-up animal mother are already pleasantly beyond the overseas horror certainties, and I wish Flanagan many more satisfied critics and ticket-paying, pissed-off fans for his next film. PS: there are no fucking orchestral jump scares! Hallelujah! (07.10.2014)

"Oculus" is not a horror film that directly disappointed me, but it is also not a particularly significant horror that amazed me. I expected it to be better, to have an interesting plot, but it is precisely the plot that makes it an ordinary horror. The formal aspect helps a lot to the ordinary story, and some cuts create the experience that this is truly something unexpected, something new. However, that does not mean that it is not worth watching and that the film will not be an experience. (17.09.2014)