Oculus (Film): Review.

martinmcfly (59)in #film • 6 years ago (edited)

A few days ago @vimukthi recommended me to see Oculus, so as always I decided to write the film on my list, but when I was going to do it, I noticed that it was already written down, this is the second recommendation, he had already done it months ago, so I decided to postpone other movies that were ahead on the list and finally give it a try, and the result was very satisfactory.

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Year: 2013
Category: Supernatural, Psychological Horror.
Director: Mike Flanagan.
Cast: Karen Gillan, Annalise Basso, Brenton Thwaites, Garrett Ryan Ewald, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane, James Lafferty, Miguel Sandoval, Kate Siegel.

Plot

A mirror in which resides a strange supernatural force distorts the perception of a family, causing the mother to lose control, the father murders her and then be killed by his own son, who along with her sister, will be orphaned. Eleven years later the brothers faced the mirror again.

Opinion

Alan Russell, a software engineer, moves into a new home with his wife Marie, 10 year old son Tim, and 12 year old daughter Kaylie. Alan decides to buy an antique mirror to decorate his office, soon, the presence of the mirror in the room begins to disturb the members of the house, including the dog, unleashing a terrible sequence of events that led to Marie being killed by her husband, and he in turn be killed by his son Tim.

11 years later, Tim, now 21 years old, is discharged from a psychiatric hospital, because apparently he finally understood that the events that occurred in the past were not the result of a supernatural malignant force that resides in that old mirror, but it was the result of the upset mind of his father, who murdered his mother and wanted to kill him and his sister. Kaylie, now 23 years old, unlike her brother she was never held in any psychiatric hospital, and devoted her time to studying the history of the mirror and tracking it, and given a convenient chance for the plot, she works for an auction house, in which that old mirror is eventually auctioned. She uses her job position to take the mirror to the same house where the terrible events happened 11 years before, where she has prepared a strategy to expose and destroy the mirror, of course, with the help of her brother.

I must say that maybe this is the most devilishly intelligent horror movie I've seen, I really never expect anything good when it comes to this genre, and less when combined with a supernatural plot, however, I was surprised by the work done in this movie, I spent an hour with forty very pleasant minutes, and yes, I understand how ironic that sounds.

I recently commented on The Witch, a film of the same genre, and said that it had been a fantastic film and that the directors and screenwriters should learn from the work done in that film, in order to try to improve the quality of the genre, howevber, although Oculus is radically different from The Witch, I think that what is done in this film is also a very important work and that it should also be taken into consideration. The Witch is on the one hand a film that is based on creating an atmosphere and a visual aesthetic to generate a quite scary staging, and although in that sense is technically superior to this film, I must say that Oculus can be much more dynamic and entertaining, and developed quite intelligently. I definitely hope I can find more horror movies similar to these two.

The direction is excellent, Mike Flanagan must be one of the best directors in the genre today, I already mentioned some of the work he has directed in the past, Hush and Gerald's Game, but Oculus seems really superior to these two.

About the performances, I must say that Karen Gillan, an actress that maybe you can know from other films but that I have met through this one, has done a truly formidable work, it is she who has the greatest weight in the film and meets the expectations that the script puts on the character. Annalise Basso, who plays the young version of Kaylie Russell, does a very good job too, she is the one who really makes all the scenes shown through the several flashbacks credible, without her excellent acting those scenes would not have had any effect, without this detracting the work done by Katee Sackhoff, who also did a very good performance as Marie the mother of the protagonists. Actually the female work was very good, all the actresses had a very good performance.

Unfortunately I can not say the same of the male performances, I think none of the actors did an acceptable job, especially Brenton Thwaites, whose character has a lot of weight in the script, but the actor's interpretation did not convince me, it seemed very inexpressive, at no time conveyed the true emotional complexity that his character should have. On the other hand the young version of the character played by Garrett Ryan Ewald is also very empty, although in he falls very little weight of the work. The interpretation of Rory Cochrane is simply normal, expressionless.

Finally I must say that it is a very acceptable and very entertaining film, so intelligently elaborated that at the end it leaves the spectator doubtful of if what he saw was only a mirage of minds disturbed by the events of his childhood, or if it was real, which is something really great considering that this genre rarely offers anything like that. If I have to question something about the film, it is the lack of interpretative commitment on the part of the male actors, and perhaps that at a certain moment of the movie after the first hour some things become a bit repetitive, even though the film is quickly replenished and keeps the entertainment.