Review by Gaby Colageo
What if your life had been destroyed by a mirror?
Would you move on or would you go out of your way to find it and destroy it?
That is what happened to Kaylie Russell (Karen Gillan) and her brother Tim
(Brenton Thwaites) when they were children. A mirror that their father Alan
(Rory Cochrane) bought for their new house isn’t what it seems to be as he and
their mother Marie (Katee Cochrane) start to change.
In present time Tim is being released from a mental institution for being blamed for murder. Kaylie
tells him she has found it, the Lesser Glass, the source of their childhood tragedy.
Kaylie is determined to prove that the Lesser Glass is the source of the evil
that plagued her house as a child and to prove her brother is innocent.
Will Kaylie prove that a supernatural being resides in the mirror? Or will the
mirror get the better of her and Tim before they can destroy it?
If you are looking for asupernatural thriller Oculus is definitely for you! This movie kept me wondering
what was going to happen next and as it bounced back and forth through past and
present to tell the story of Kaylie and Tim. The switching of past and present
made the movie visually interesting because the blending of the timelines was
so seamless.
The acting was great as well! I really loved Katee Cochrane as the
mom, the way her character slowly turned and then snapped was really scary.
There were also a few scenes in the film that were so intense that they made me
cringe, the sound of crunching glass will definitely get a rise out of the
viewer.
In Oculus, The Lesser Glass has a history behind it which gave the supernatural part of the movie a bit of afoundation in my opinion.
I feel that giving the object that is cursed or haunted a myth or history makes it more significant, and it also makes for a
better story.
A key element in this movie is suspense since you never know what
the mirror is going to do next. As the tag line of the movie says, “You see
what it wants you to see” and I think that makes it terrifying. A main element
of the movie is that the mirror can make you see things that aren’t real but
feel real. That is what makes this movie so thrilling in my opinion, the idea
of not being able to differentiate what is real and what is an illusion can be
someone’s worst fear. Oculus definitely is a must see for those into
psychological thrillers, the ending will leave you wanting more.
I give this movie 4/5 stars.
