Scary movies are supposed to startle and surprise, but they’ve become routine.
You know when someone is going to pop into frame from behind the person you’re watching, and you know there will be a loud “BUM!” to announce their sudden presence. (In Scary Movie World, surprises make sounds.)
Like a hungry vampire draining a helpless victim of blood, our familiarity with the now tired tempo of the genre has sucked the fun out of watching a horror film.
There is hope, however. It first arrived last summer in the form of “The Conjuring,” a supremely creepy movie with effective scares. Now comes “Oculus,” which is less about being creepy and scary and more about telling a really good story.
“Oculus” is still creepy and scary, though. There’s a moment when the malevolent spirit behind the weird goings-on makes herself known, and my skin instantly goose bumped from head to toe. There are also some nicely staged jump scares. While one did involve someone popping into frame, director Mike Flanagan threw in a clever bit of misdirection when he staged the scene, allowing the pop-in to take me by surprise. (He also left out the “BUM!” – another nice touch.)
But “Oculus” is more about its story, which is a clever construction.
“Oculus” stars Karen Gillian as Kaylie, a young woman who believes the supernatural entity that possesses an antique mirror was responsible for the deaths of her parents a decade earlier. The movie opens with her brother, Tim, being released from a mental hospital, where the authorities sent him after he killed his father. At the time, he claimed he was protecting his sister and himself from the evil spirit that drove his dad to madness, but his therapist has convinced him otherwise, and he’s interested only in putting the past behind him and moving forward. Kaylie, however, has spent the years since her brother was taken away plotting her revenge.
She certainly did her homework, which included tracing the history of the mirror through several centuries and discovering a pattern of madness and death. When the auction house for which she works sells the piece, she arranges for movers to take it to the house where she and her family were living when her parents were killed. To kill the possessing spirit when it become corporeal, she’s rigged her dad’s former office, where he kept the mirror, with computers, audio-visual equipment, and a large blade connected to a fail safe switch.
You know what they say about the best laid plans, though.
The thing about “Oculus” that fascinated me the most was not the core story but how the story was pieced together. The movie switches back and forth between two story threads – Kaylie and Tim as children and then as young adults. Throughout the film, the time between cuts to the other storyline shorten until the two timelines converge and the past affects the present. Combine this with what are either memory lapses or mental manipulations that make it appear as though Kaylie and Tim are in one place when they’re actually elsewhere, and either illusions or delusions that make them see things, and you have a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
“Oculus” was written, directed, and acted in such a way it allows for two possibilities: either there really is a demon in the mirror, or Kaylie and Tim are off their rockers due to childhood abuse. You can walk out of the theater arguing either side.
Before ending this review, I need to comment on the performances, which are top notch. Annalise Basso and Garrett Ryan, as the young Kaylie and Tim, respectively, especially do a terrific job of selling the story.
“Oculus” takes a standard story about an evil spirit and its victims and tells it in an exciting, fresh way. I could have been more scared, but I couldn’t have been more thrilled.
Three-and-a-half stars out of four. Rated R for terror, violence, disturbing images, and brief language.