I watched this On Demand over Labor Day weekend with my girlfriend. Weird as it may seem we both kind of have a soft spot for horror films. She digs scary possession type films while like the stalk and slash films. Though we do both enjoy the "descent in madness" films as well. The film received a 74% on rottentomatoes.com so, we decided to give it a test drive. The film is low budget horror that seems to saturate the market these days. There's very little gore and no overtly outlandish special effects. The estimated budget was $5 million. Oculus opened on April 11th on over 2,600 screens and took in over $12 million opening weekend. To date the film has grossed over $41 million worldwide. With those numbers, there will be a sequel.
The film takes place over two time time periods, there are the actions 11 years ago when the Russell family first encountered the mirror and the present. The film slips into in between the two era sometimes very well and sometimes not so much. The film opens with Tim Russell (Brenton Thwaites) being released from a mental institution and his sister Kaylie (Karen Gillan) is picking him up. Kaylie lets Tim know that she has the mirror and that they need to fulfill their promise to destroy it. Now let's go back...
Eleven years ago, Kaylie was 13 and Tim was 11. Their family just moved into a new home in a remote exclusive neighborhood. As the movers are bringing in furniture it's decided to put the antique mirror in the office. Once the mirror is hung in the office, weird things start to happen. The mirror starts by killing the plants and making the dog sick. Then it goes to work on the parents Marie and Alan (Katee Sackoff and Rory Cochrane). Present Day: After some convincing, Kaylie take Tim back to the house where things went bad. Kaylie has gone through a lot of trouble to bring the mirror back and has spent good portion of the last decade researching the mirror. Apparently the mirror is a dark entity that has caused the deaths of nearly 50 people over the last 400 years. She's also cooked up this elaborate scheme to record the events of the evening.
The film continues to switch back and forth. In the past, the children watch helplessly as their parents descend into madness. In the present, things get weirder and weirder. Tim and Kaylie see things as the reminisce about what happened, Tim is skeptical of everything that's happened. Its obvious that the decade in the mental hospital affected his memory. Let's cut to the chase, things go bad 11 years ago. Both parents lose their shit in different ways and as things breakdown in the past, things gradually get worse in the present. The mirror is really doing a number on Kaylie and Tim. Without spoiling too much and putting it bluntly, Tim finds himself in the same situation in the present as he did 11 years...being hauled off to the looney bin.
The summary was not that descriptive but this is the kind of film that I don't want to give too much away. Tis was a pretty solid film for what it was. Dark, creepy and a bit scary. The acting was solid all around. There were sometimes when the switching back & forth got annoying but that was needed. There were two stories, what went down when Tim and Kaylie were kids and their attempt at destroying the entity that damaged their once happy family. The stories are connected and lead to the same terrible end. I must admit I am still not sure how Kaylie was going to destroy the mirror. The was an elaborate system set-up to do so but I am not sure how she was expecting to get there.
Oculus is a solid rental for a Friday or Saturday night.
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