Movie Appraisal: Oculus (2013)

It is late at night, and I just finished this movie. And I don't know what to do. I'm not alone in my apartment. I shouldn't feel this nameless fear striking me in the gut. My fiancee, who does not like horror movies, is asleep in the bedroom as I write this review. She did not watch the movie either. She probably does not even know that I watched it.

I only say that because I am not even alone here, and yet I feel more alone after watching this movie than I have in a very long time. I have, for the past two years, done as little as possible with the horror genre. Sure, I've watched a few movies that I've definitely watched and reviewed on this blog before, And I've played a few horror video games as well. But for the most part my life has been devoid of horror because I like saying my thoughts on this blog about horror movies, and couldn't bring myself to watch them without being able to write a review up. It's my own failing really. I could have watched them and not had my life of loving horror movies on pause, but I felt that the new horror movies I would watch should have a fresh experience of review, rather than a review of someone who has definitely seen it more than once.

I'm explaining myself too much. Suffice it to say, I was thoroughly terrified by this movie.

It succeeded in being both very scary and extremely unsettling. I'm not sure if I'll be able to sleep tonight. And that's great because I love great and scary horror movies. It's also terrible because I have work tomorrow and my fragile mind should not have to deal with this much psychological horror all at once.

I guess I should get started with my extremely positive review of this film. Oculus is brilliant. This is exactly the type of movie I search for, especially in the more "mainstream" horror movies. It's exactly the type of movie I spend my waking hours seeking. The whole "very old object" horror works so well. It is almost Lovecraftian in nature, something beyond the scope of human ken. And that's a huge reason why this movie works so well for me.

Oculus is directed by Mike Flanagan, the man who also directed Absentia, a movie I look back on a lot more fondly than my review does, I'll say that much. It could be that I think better of it because Doug Jones himself commented on a blog post I had written up for the movie, or maybe I just have a very fond memory of the tunnel idea itself. I still do not think it is a wonderful movie, but time has been kind in my mind to it. So, seeing another movie by the same director was exciting for me. It's seeing how somebody has grown and developed over time.

And grow Mike Flanagan did. His directing chops are really quite something to behold. And so is this film.

The word "oculus" is Latin, It usually means "orb" or "eye." But it can also mean "eyesight" and a couple of other less relevant things. I'm kind of a Latin nerd. Sorry. But I find it fascinating that they focused on a word that means "eye" as the title of the film. I think it might be one of the most telling parts of the movie itself.

Anyway, the plot revolves around a brother and sister, whose parents were both killed when the siblings were younger. Their mother was "tortured" and killed by their father, and their father was killed by the brother, Tim. Tim is put into a mental hospital, which he stays until eleven years later on his twenty-first birthday as the film begins. The sister, Kaylie (played by a manic Karen Gillan), believes that she has all the answers to what happened all those years ago, and she recruits her brother to help her citing the promise they made to one another years before of destroying the evil that plagued their family.

And there's the premise. The thing that Kaylie blames for all their troubles is a very old antique mirror that her parents had purchased and put into her father's study. And the mirror is the true source of "evil" or malignancy or whatever you want to call it. It makes both parents go mad in different ways, but the children don't seem to go mad, not until they have become adults and try to best the mirror themselves.

The film blends both past and present together seamlessly. It is a wonderful mixing of time periods into this terrifying story. It messes with one's own perceptions when watching the film. I love the psychology that has been taken into account in the movie, talking about fuzzy memories  and blocks in the mind. The mirror uses weaknesses and strengths against the siblings and all whom it comes into contact. And that is truly terrifying.

Oculus is a cross between 1408 and Sinister or maybe Insidious or something. That sounds like a vague comparison to make, but there are a great deal of these movies that have come out recently that have very similar design and conceptual qualities to them. It is definitely mainstream-ish 2010s horror is my ultimate point here. I hope that doesn't sound like an insult. While current horror is not my favorite horror to watch, there really have been some amazing gems that have come out in well-known movies. It just so happens that a lot of these movies, if popular, get endless sequels that beat the premise into the ground like a hammer to a stake.

And that is the real problem of these well made and original horror movies. Sequels will ruin the novelty and brilliance of these ideas if given the chance. But, I will say that I am glad that I have avoided most of the 2010s horror sequel craze. So, there's that, at least.

Anyway,  I have to say that this movie was something I wasn't expecting, I can't even deal with the ending right now after just watching it. I won't spoil it here. But having it comparable to 1408 was not a bad thing to me. It just happened to be a lot worse in the end. Maybe. It's hard to say.

I have a few more musings before I wrap up. Obviously, because I liked it, I really don't want to spoil it for anybody. I had heard nothing but recommendations for this movie. And that's all I really have to say about it. The film is really excellent at getting its points across, and while it gets really heavy-handed with some of its ideas, it also is very subtle in its approach of character building, especially if you consider the mirror one of the characters.

Anyway, random musings time. There was a reference to a "South Windham Whale" in the movie as Kaylie is listing the history of the mirror. This reference is an oddity for me specifically. I know the majority of the readers here will literally not think twice about the reference as anything but a one-off joke. But I grew up in a town right next to South Windham, Connecticut. I know that town like the back of my hand. So, it's weird to hear it mentioned in a pretty major horror movie motion picture thing. It doesn't happen very often, and it made me regard the movie with a bit more interest.

It is terrifying and so well put together as a movie. I haven't seen a new horror movie this good in quite the long time, probably three or four years at the least. Holy hell is it good though. I loved this movie from every angle. It is superb storytelling. It gets you involved, . The movement between the past and the present is seamless, and I can't state that enough.

Anyway, it is a strong recommendation. If you are sensitive to gore, realize that, while there isn't a ton, there definitely is some vicious moments of it in passing. But beyond that, I can't say enough good things about it.

Movie Appraisal: Absentia (2011)

Okay, here's an interesting film that I have mixed feelings about in so many ways. This movie is simultaneously very interesting, almost thought-provoking in some ways, and also very dull in others. It's yet another horror film without horror. It's yet another movie that should be terrifying and yet really only comes off as a boring yarn. That's not quite fair,but I certainly found myself less than interested in the entire movie. The story and execution could have been done so much better, but ultimately were done poorly because of the lack of focus on anything even remotely interesting. And that's why this movie feels schizophrenic. It feels all over the place. It feels like it's trying to do everything, succeeds in some areas, but fails in most.

It would be unfair to call Absentia a bad film though. It's certainly not a bad movie, but it never really feels like its own thing. It never really has its own identity. The closest it comes is when it's showing the tunnel, usually the inside of the tunnel, and usually Doug Jones is involved as well. That's the best part of the film. But the movie really bogs down when the story is explored. The two sisters are less than interesting people. Callie (played by Katie Parker) never has more than the most minor of character development, shown as a little wild, a little drugged up, and a Christian. But that's not three-dimensional character development, it's just a list of what she is rather than who she is. Her sister is done slightly better in general, but Tricia (played by Courtney Bell) has her own issues of being a little too intense at times, again not showing the range of emotions she almost certainly should be showing.

So, this movie was a Kickstarter project. If you haven't heard of Kickstarter, well... it's a website where people can try to crowdfund a project, in this case a movie. And I have to show that it is certainly apparent that the budget was not huge for this movie. That being said, I don't really care if the movie looks amazing or looks terrible. Well shot movies can be just as bad as terribly shot movies, but I didn't like the aesthetics of this film. They turned me off constantly, with nothing in the movie looking particularly good at all... but also nothing in the movie looking awful or horrifying either. I'm not even saying that stuff looked mundane. It just didn't look good.

It was a disappointing film for me. I had heard about it for a while and had been trying to see it for a while. The first chance I get to see it, and all I see is not so great acting, a movie that doesn't look good, and hectic direction that just doesn't work. Now, I'm usually kind of nice to these independent films, but I just had a ton of problems with this film, probably because I actually really enjoyed both the premise and the story, but was incredibly disappointed with the execution. Everything felt wrong with the execution, from the acting to the direction by Mike Flanagan. The only actors that stuck out to me as being very good were the few scenes with Doug Jones and Morgan Peter Brown as Daniel, but only towards the end of his appearance in the film.

The movie's plot is pretty much: Tricia's husband disappears for seven years. He's going to be declared dead in absentia. Callie comes to give Tricia some moral support with Daniel being declared dead and also with Tricia having a baby on the way, and then Daniel shows up. Most of the film though is really very dry, and if you have no understanding or liking of the characters it becomes very hard to watch indeed. There are scenes that are almost baffling to me why they are in the movie. for example the scenes where Daniel is describing the bug-things is pretty good, but actually showing those bug things out of the corner of the screen is much less effective. The movie is not scary except one very small scene basically at the end of the film where Callie isn't specific enough about her request and something bad happens. (If you've seen the movie you know what I'm talking about.) That right there was a well done scene, but was also one of the few very well done scenes.

I don't even know what else to say. This was not a good movie to me. Honestly it was a movie that offered me very little. It didn't look good. It didn't sound good. The acting wasn't particularly compelling. Yes, the story made the movie a little worth it, and the lines and writing were also pretty decent, but for the most part I could have never seen this movie and would not have missed a thing. I can't recommend this movie. Hell, I can barely even talk about it. It has nothing really to offer and definitely comes off more as a boring execution of an interesting idea than a total failure... but that doesn't make the movie any better. I hate ripping into an independent film like this, but I was not a fan despite thinking that I might really like this movie. There's nothing else to say. Avoid this movie if at all possible. I hate being harsh, but this was just not well done in my opinion. I am totally baffled as to why... how... it won awards for this... and why I'm not seeing the brilliance that others obviously did. Am I missing something? Did I go comatose in the scene that makes the movie good? I don't think I did.

Anyway, this is a disappointing flick and should be avoided. Its premise is great, but the execution leaves a ton to be desired.