Oculus

Today's horror flick was Oculus, continuing what I think may be a theme this year of watching Mike Flanagan movies for some reason. Oculus is essentially about a pretty damn haunted mirror that has left a string of bodies in its wake since its creation. The mirror finally comes to the hands of a suburban family of four and they all end up getting pretty messed up by the demons (ghosts?) in the mirror. Flash forward to the future and the only surviving members of the family, the two children, join forces to take the mirror down for good.

I heard good things about this movie, and I had high hopes with Flanagan at the helm, but really... I was left pretty underwhelmed. The movie is a cool idea with time jumps interwoven together and the idea of a mirror that messes with your perception of reality, but ideas don't hold it up enough. It's kind of a mess. Once the novelty of different timeline jumps wears of it ultimately just becomes confusing as you realize that something that seemed creative isn't being used in a creative way. The time jumps (which probably isn't a super accurate term... maybe time splices is better?) really only serve to show the characters seeing their childhood, scared selves. Perhaps a better way to use this mechanic of diminishing returns could have been something with the mirror actually messing with timelines, causing them to actually see and perhaps even interact with each other in each timeline. This, to me, is far more interesting than the overwrought haunted item/house trope that we've seen so many times.

What Oculus ends up being is an overall unremarkable haunting film with some cool ideas and filmmaking techniques thrown in. Unique techniques here though just feel like a distraction from an all around bland film. In other words, the flourishes can't save it. 

6/10