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| Review by Ben Robbins |
I am not really sure what I exactly watched in the theater during the screening of Oculus, but it sure was not what I had hoped for.
This film, was neither horror film or psychological thriller. It was kind of a mish-mosh of kinda scary ideas thrown together with a pretty good cast about a haunted mirror and a creepy, lady spirit.
It neither scared me nor made me think.
Based on his short film of the same name, writer director, Mike Flannagan, probably should have left this a half hour film instead of trying to pad it with nonsense and make it a feature.
The story is a cobbled together, loose fitting, group of different ideas, none of which cohesively make a single film.
From what I gleaned, an obsessed woman is convinced that a mirror, her dad bought when she was a kid, is responsible for him going crazy and killing their mother. In the aftermath her brother kills their father, is sent to a mental institution, and she is put in foster care.
All of this is shown through a series of poorly conceived flashbacks.
The movie is supposed to take place in present day, a decade or so after the events took place. Through really poor plot devices and ill explained means, the girl, now played by Doctor Who alum Karen Gillan gets ahold of the mirror through her work at her fiancee’s auction house.
Her brother, played by Australian soap star, Brenton Thwaites is now released from the mental institute and ready to get on with his life, seemingly over the insane events of his past. Too bad his sister never got the treatment he got because she has come up with this overly elaborate and totally non-evidentially supported plan to prove the mirror is haunted and makes people kill.
Many over used horror and paranormal film tropes are forced into use and the instead of making this a taut thriller/horror film it wanted to be, it becomes a melodramatic albeit sometimes gory “coming to terms with your past” film, except with a The Ring/The Grudge-like creepy chick. The coolest thing about the creepy chick is the mirrored contacts she wore. It was a neat effect.
Wasted is Katee Sackoff (Battlestar Galactica, Longmire, Riddick) as the mother, in all the flashbacks, who becomes suspicious of her husband’s behavior and subsequently goes crazy. She is eventually chained in the bedroom and eats a dinner plate. Also wasted is CSI: Miami’s Rory Cochrane as the eventually possessed dad.
Not to say Karen wasn’t wasted either.
Oh, she was.
Not only was she forced to abandon her Scottish accent for an “American” accent, she spends more time crying and acting more crazy than anyone in the film. But not in a good way. She, via the poor writing, has all sorts of erratic character choices and has no real clear development.
I think what was supposed to be clever and deep plot twists were actually just poor writing and poorly executed direction.
The one good point of the film was the two actors playing the brother and sister in the flashbacks. Annalise Basso and Garret Ryan were terrific and very believable as kids who have no idea what the crap is happening to their parents. I totally bought that they had no idea how to even begin to handle things once they really start going to pot. I have all the respect for these two actors as they took a terribly written script and made it seem really believable.
My last thought on this film is this: Save your money.
I am sure this will be on Netflix within the month and should you finally run out of Breaking Bad or American Horror Story to watch, this is a fine way to kill 105 minutes.
Though know you will not get those minutes back. Fair warning.
And that might be the scariest thing about the film.
