OCULUS (8 out of 10) – Directed by Mike Flanagan, written by Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard; starring Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, and Rory Cochrane; rated R (terror, violence, some disturbing images and brief language); in general release; running time: 105 minutes.
There’s something universally appealing about horror stories that involve confronting childhood demons. Regardless of the status a person achieves as an adult, everyone has some irrational fear that they carry with them from when they were kids. Like Stephen King’s “It,” this is the fear that Mike Flanagan’s “Oculus” sinks its teeth into.
When Kaylie and Tim Russell (Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaites) were kids, they witnessed a terrible tragedy in their homes—a tragedy that left both of their parents dead and young Tim committed to a psych ward for eleven years. The years of therapy have convinced Tim that the incident happened as a result of their father Alan’s (Rory Cochrane) mental illness. After a therapeutic breakthrough, Tim is released to reconnect with his sister—who remembers the tragedy much differently. According to Kaylie, the malevolent entity that resides within an antique mirror is responsible for the entire tragedy. Now that she has finally tracked the mirror down and her brother is a free man, she takes him up on a promise that they made as children—that they would destroy the mirror once and for all when they grew up, or, if they can’t destroy it, at least prove that it’s home to a nasty supernatural creature.
Kaylie’s plan to use multiple cameras, floodlights, and even a sacrificial dog to expose the mirror’s supernatural presence hints at an obsessive/compulsive disorder that might be present within her own mind, which helps segue into the film’s big question: Were the events of their childhood the result of unchecked mental illness or a demonic entity? Where Kaylie believes the latter, Tim draws upon the safety net of psychological therapy that he’s received over the past eleven years to form a more scientific explanation. It’s interesting to see the discussion go back and forth as the siblings begin to mistrust one another’s perspective. In fact, I wish Tim stuck to his guns for just a little bit longer. Once Tim abandons his psychological standpoint, the wedge of paranoia that starts to come between them just fizzles out.
As the film progresses towards its shocking climax, the plotlines involving the present Russells and their younger selves become more intertwined and disorienting, resulting in a dizzying sense of uncertainty for the audience. Is Kaylie really biting into a light bulb? Is Tim really talking to the police on the phone? These interchanging scenes work as well as they do largely because of Annalise Basso and Garrett Ryan, who play the younger Russells with just the right mix of fear and bravery in the face of an entity that is bent on their destruction. Katee Sackhoff and Rory Cochrane are also great additions to the cast—particularly owning the scenes in which they start losing their minds.
In a genre that has long been dominated by senseless gratuity, “Oculus” takes viewers back to a near Hitchcockian world of horror—one that is dominated by the dark nooks and crannies that exist within our own fragile psyches—and does so in a way that still manages to feel original.