Despite the cheesiness of most horror movies nowadays, Oculus intrigued me. Normally I would not have seen a movie like this, much less have enjoyed it as much as I did. I am not usually the type of person who enjoys a scary movie, honestly I rarely watch frightful movies alone and or at night. There was something about this film that grabbed me. Maybe it was the title. Oculus is a word that you do not hear very often.

Starring Karen Gillan as Kaylie Russel and Brenton Thwaites as brother Tim, the film was driven by the collaboration of the character’s memories and how they affected their mental fortitude as adults who try and cope with events suffered as children.
Kaylie is certain that a specific mirror is possessed and responsible for the death of her parents years earlier. She enlists the help of her brother to destroy the mirror once and for all, ensuring that it cannot harm any people in the future.
I really enjoyed how the film progressed. The minds behind the film, namely Director Mike Flanagan, did a masterful job with using flashbacks to the sibling’s past to commingle with events of the present. This treatment ends up leaving the audience in a tailspin of emotion, questioning if what they see is the truth or a figment of the character’s imagination.
Gillan serves up a fresh performance that borders on sane and pure looney tunes, while Thwaites leaves a little to be desired as it seemed he was more eye candy than functional character.
Also starring in the film is Katee Sackhoff and Rory Cochrane as parents Marie and Alan. Both prove to be amazing at capturing the creepy essence of the possessing mirror.
There were some aspects of the movie that were lacking to me. Some parts were so obvious with what was going to happen, leading to disappointment as you realize that the foreshadowing is correct and the audience misses out on a possible great scare.
Speaking about scares, the movie itself was not scary. There were some jump-scares, but for the most part the film was tame.

Overall, the film was really good and deserving of a possible sequel or prequel. For a lighter horror film with a really great plot and decent execution, Oculus resulted in me being a happy viewer.