oculus movie review

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

Add Mike Flanagan's "Oculus" to the horror subgenre of supernatural item movies. This time it's not a haunted doll or magical box but a deadly mirror with the power to compel people to commit violent acts. A man will think that he is trying to rip a Band-Aid from his finger only to realize that he's pulling his fingernail off instead. And that's nothing compared to what happens to teeth. The mirror has destroyed dozens of lives over the years, such as the time a mother thought she was tucking her children into bed but was drowning them in a cistern. "You see what it wants you to see", as the tagline goes. While the narrative freedom inherent in that premise allows for some truly strong visuals at times—the focus on star Karen Gillan 's bouncing red pony tail down a hall or a bloody hand hidden behind a doorframe—"Oculus" eventually becomes little more than a series of ghostly figures and twisted visions on its way to a cop-out of an ending that you'll see coming an hour away. Solid performances and a few memorable images save it from disaster but Flanagan's film left me longing for the movie it could have been instead of what it actually is.

When "Oculus" opens, Tim Russell ( Brenton Thwaites ) is being released from years of intensive therapy. Much like Daniel Lutz (whose life story became " The Amityville Horror "), Tim believed for most of his time in a padded cell that his father was forced to commit horrendous violence because of a supernatural force. His doctors, including Miguel Sandoval in a prologue cameo, reworked those memories to lead him to believe that dad was just a really bad guy and there was no supernatural mojo at work. And so Tim hesitantly leaves the hospital to reenter society. Maybe having lunch with his sister wasn't the best idea.

Not having the "benefit" of therapy, Tim's sis Kaylie (Karen Gillan of "Doctor Who") wastes almost no time pulling her brother back into the world that he has spent years trying to repress. Kaylie, who works at an auction house, has found the mirror. She steals the haunted antique, setting it up in the family home as the focus of a fantastic array of cameras, alarm clocks, temperature gauges, and even a giant swinging blade designed to finally destroy it. Before Kaylie is willing to put an end to the mirror's unholy reign, she wants to document and prove its power. Another bad idea.

For the entirety of "Oculus," the narrative cuts back and forth from the adult pair's efforts to ghostbust the mirror with what happened to them years earlier. Young Tim (Garret Ryan) and young Kaylie ( Annalise Basso ) moved into a lovely home with their father Alan ( Rory Cochrane ), a software designer, and their supportive mother Marie ( Katee Sackhoff ). And then Dad went antique shopping. With far too little set-up, pop goes off the mental rails and mom is left an inevitable victim. The flashbacks in "Oculus" have a depressing fatalism because we're told who will live and who will die early on, turning these scenes into an exercise in inevitable gore. The lack of suspense is more disheartening when one realizes that the hole hasn't been filled by any sort of social context at all. Films like " The Shining " and "The Amityville Horror" also trafficked in the inevitable but grounded their narratives in cautionary tales of how familial stress and other external factors like alcoholism can destroy a patriarch.

The "present day" material in "Oculus" is much more effective, thanks largely to a game performance from Gillan. She renders Kaylie as a driven woman on the edge of sanity herself. When she growls at the mirror, "You must be hungry," one can see the B-movie glory that "Oculus" could have been. Her younger brother got the treatment he needed but Kaylie was left to fight for the day she could get vengeance on the mirror that wrecked her life. Gillan sells that hair-trigger intensity in the film's best moments, and when Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard open the door to the however-brief possibility that Kaylie may actually be crazy, "Oculus" is at its most interesting.

Sadly, they can't maintain that intrigue past the second act. As so many of these ventures do, the final act of "Oculus" becomes an increasingly random series of scenes designed to push buttons instead of anything inherent to character or narrative. If there are no rules or relatable subtext within the world of a horror film, the images have no power. Both overly foreshadowed climactic acts of "Oculus"—they tell us over and over again that dad is going to go homicidal and that they're going to try to destroy the mirror—feel like genre faits accomplis and so their inevitability becomes little more than a shallow reflection of superior works.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Now playing

Kung Fu Panda 4

Christy lemire.

The First Omen

Tomris laffly.

Wicked Little Letters

Sheila o'malley.

Carol Doda Topless at the Condor

Marya e. gates.

State of Consciousness

Simon abrams, film credits.

Oculus (2014)

Rated R for terror, violence, some disturbing images and brief language

105 minutes

Karen Gillan as Kaylie Russell

Brenton Thwaites as Tim Russell

Katee Sackhoff as Marie Russell

Rory Cochrane as Alan Russell

Annalise Basso as Young Karen

Garretty Ryan as Young Tim

Miguel Sandoval as Dr. Shawn Graham

• Mike Flanagan
• Jeff Howard

Latest blog posts

The Zellner Brothers Take a Walk in the Woods with Sasquatch Sunset

The Scene That Clint Eastwood Cut to Make Unforgiven a Classic

Ape Shall Not Kill Ape: A Look at the Entire Apes Franchise

​Criterion Celebrates the Films That Forever Shifted Our Perception of Kristen Stewart​

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Review: Why ‘Oculus’ Is One of the Scariest American Horror Movies In Years

• Share on Facebook
• Share to Flipboard
• Share on LinkedIn
• Show more sharing options
• Submit to Reddit
• Post to Tumblr
• Print This Page
• Share on WhatsApp

“Oculus” is an exception. Appropriately being co-released by microbudget fear factory Blumhouse Production — its founder, Jason Blum , helped turn the scrappy productions “Paranormal Activity” and “The Purge” into profitable franchises — much of the new movie’s chilly atmosphere involves the experiences of two characters in a room with one very ominous mirror. As the haunted object plays tricks on its two would-be victims’ minds, the audience falls prey to the ruse as well. Director Mike Flanagan turns the fragile nature of consciousness into a better fear tactic than any visceral shocks could possibly achieve.

“Oculus” certainly relies on a familiar toolbox, including the occasional clichéd moment when something scary materializes right behind an unsuspecting character. But the specifics of the scenario engender a fundamental state of dread that grows heavier with each murky twist. Flanagan’s script, co-written by Jeff Howard and based on an earlier short film, nimbly moves between events that transpired 11 years ago and their ramifications in the present: In the opening scenes, 21-year-old Tim (Brenton Thwaites) is released from a psychotherapy ward after years on lockdown and reunited with his sister, Kaylie ( Karen Gillan ). With a steely resolve, she announces that the pair must return to the childhood home and “kill it” — a declaration that immediately establishes a menacing supernatural presence that remains hard to define throughout the movie.

But Flanagan quickly fills in a few more pertinent details: The siblings’ youth was disrupted with the arrival of the mirror into the claustrophobic study where their father (Rory Cochrane) worked alone; at some point, maybe because of his own lapsing sanity or maybe because the mirror drove him mad, their ill-fated father murdered their mother (Katee Sackhoff), at which point young Tim shot him dead. Kaylie has been waiting for her brother to reemerge into society so the two of them can confront the bizarre ancient menace, which is apparently responsible for 48 deaths in 400 years. As soon as he’s free, she snatches up the mirror at a local auction and brings him back to the scene of the crime, with camcorders set up to capture their every move over the course of one isolated, dreary night. In short order, plenty of things go bump in the night, but it’s gradually clear that nothing happening can be taken for granted, including Kaylie and Tim’s own behaviors. At its best, “Oculus” is a tightly enacted chamber drama that just happens to include supernatural phenomena. The mirror is messing with them at every turn — and, by extension, it’s messing with us.

The first sign that “Oculus” has more on its mind arrives as the adult Tim attempts to shrug off his sister’s recollections of supernatural occurrences with the “fuzzy trace” theory of human psychology — essentially, false memories derived from inaccurate associations: In Tim’s view, their dad was an unfaithful lunatic — hence the cryptic presence of another woman in his study after hours — and eventually went ballistic on his wife as a result of their marital tensions. His kids’ convictions about the nature of these events, the thinking goes, suggest a history of mental illness in the family.

And who’s to say whether Tim has it right? As the duo creep around the house, evading passing shadows and lashing out blindly in the wrong directions, it’s never entirely clear if any given point of view holds ground. “Oculus” keeps digging further into their frightened state, thickening the dreary atmosphere at every turn, so that even while the outcome of the scenario is fairly predictable early on, it’s continually haunting as it maps out a path to get there. A truly contemporary horror movie, its eeriness stems from manipulated cell phone conversations and recorded data on the ubiquitous cameras that may or may not accurately represent events as they transpire. No matter how much technology they have on their side, nothing in certain.

In recent years, few American genre films have managed the extreme spookiness found in many of their overseas brethren. Even while “Oculus” plays by the book in individual moments, it manages to invent a shrewder context for the events in question. It’s not the scenes that matter so much as the way they do (and don’t) fit together. It uses subjectivity like a weapon. By contrast, last year’s generally well-liked haunted house effort “The Conjuring” capably grappled with issues of faith, but failed to unite its bigger ideas with the rudimentary process for freaking us out.

In “Oculus,” the horror is at once deceptively simple and rooted in a deep, primal uneasiness. Its scariest aspects are universally familiar: By witnessing the two leads fall prey to the ghastly object’s manipulation, we too become its victims. Reflecting the way our greatest fears lie within our own insecurities, the mirror is an ideal metaphor for the horror genre’s lasting potency.

Criticwire Grade : A-

HOW WILL IT PLAY? Relativity opens “Oculus” nationwide this weekend. With little competition, it should find respectable returns among the sizable audience for horror films, although its primary audience lies on VOD, where it should be successful for a long time.

Most Popular

You may also like.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Explaining the News to Our Kids

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Common sense media reviewers.

Outstanding horror flick has gore, children in peril.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Though the characters quickly get themselves in to

While the brother and sister characters are well-w

Several very bloody, gory scenes. A man rips off h

Both a married couple and an engaged couple are sh

"S--t" is heard a few times, and "f--k" is used a

Apple computers are shown during a scene featuring

An upset mother drinks glass after glass of wine w

Parents need to know that Oculus is an outstanding horror film about a haunted mirror. Expect several gory scenes that are designed to induce squirms (including photos of grisly deaths and crime scenes, fingernails being ripped off, etc.); there are also some flat-out scary images that aren't meant for the…

Positive Messages

Though the characters quickly get themselves in too deep (and resort to stealing, lying, and violence), Oculus has a very strong, interesting sibling relationship. Yes, they argue, but they also clearly care for each other and try to help and protect each other. But in the flashback sequences, the younger children are in peril, and their situation looks pretty hopeless.

Positive Role Models

While the brother and sister characters are well-written and interact in realistic ways -- working together, fighting, and trying to help each other -- overall, their behavior in the film isn't very admirable. Their plan requires stealing, lying, and resorting to violence and destruction.

Violence & Scariness

Several very bloody, gory scenes. A man rips off his fingernails. A woman accidentally bites into a light bulb (she thinks it's an apple). A woman's scar turns into a bloody, gaping wound. In one scene, a woman shows photographs of grisly deaths and crime scenes. A gun is used. But the main issue here is in the flashbacks, showing two younger children in peril. They're neglected, ignored, tricked, trapped, and eventually attacked -- though viewers do know that they both lived to grow up.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Both a married couple and an engaged couple are shown kissing. A mom wears a sheer nightie around the house.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"S--t" is heard a few times, and "f--k" is used a couple of times. "Damn," "hell," "Jesus," and "oh my God" are also heard a few times.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Apple computers are shown during a scene featuring surveillance equipment.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

An upset mother drinks glass after glass of wine while her kids eat dinner.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Oculus is an outstanding horror film about a haunted mirror. Expect several gory scenes that are designed to induce squirms (including photos of grisly deaths and crime scenes, fingernails being ripped off, etc.); there are also some flat-out scary images that aren't meant for the faint of heart. But while there's plenty of blood in the movie, its real focus is on story and characters (the siblings are interesting, albeit not always admirable). Language is somewhat strong, with a few uses of "s--t" and one possible use of "f--k" (spoken quietly during a noisy scene). There's a scene of heavy drinking, some minor kissing between couples, and some Apple computers shown. The movie is likely to be a must-see for horror buffs, and many teens will want to see it, too. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (7)
• Kids say (23)

Based on 7 parent reviews

Outstanding direction with decent scary scenes

What's the story.

After 11 years, Tim Russell (Brenton Thwaites) -- who killed his father as a boy -- is released from a psychiatric hospital. His sister, Kaylie ( Karen Gillan ), immediately asks him to participate in a ritual: to help destroy the creepy old mirror that she thinks caused all the trouble. At first, it appears as if Kaylie may be crazy, but it soon becomes apparent that the mirror does have the power to make people see things. Before long, the siblings are flashing back to the events of their childhood, when the mirror drove their mother ( Katee Sackhoff ) into hysterics and turned their father (Rory Cochrane) into a homicidal maniac. Will Tim and Kaylie be able to tell reality from nightmare -- and survive?

Is It Any Good?

Creepy mirrors have been featured in horror movies plenty of times before, but none of them have been anything quite like OCULUS. It immediately turns your expectations upside via the character of Tim, a troubled but cured soul with blood on his hands. The question of whether he'll kill again quickly becomes moot as his old bond with his sister re-asserts itself. The characters are strong and interact in vivid ways, and they remain the movie's anchor; they're no horror movie amateurs, and they struggle to stay on top of the scares.

But Oculus ' real weapon is its flashbacks, which aren't specifically used as flashbacks but rather as illusions and nightmares forced upon the characters by the mirror's evil. They fold over into reality as younger and older versions of the same characters regard one another, and it's clear that they shouldn't be taken literally. This is a breakthrough for director Mike Flanagan, and (apologies for the pun) a most reflective horror movie.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Oculus ' violence and gore. Which scenes were meant to make you squeal and squirm, and which had a more visceral effect? What's the difference between these moments? Do bloody scenes make a movie more frightening?

How scary is Oculus compared to other horror movies you've seen? What's scary about it? How did you feel about the scenes with the young children in peril? Did it make a difference knowing that they were only flashbacks or nightmares and that the children survive to grow up?

What's the relationship between the central brother and sister like? Is it realistic? Is it stereotypical ? If you have siblings, how does it compare to your relationship with them?

Movie Details

• In theaters : April 11, 2014
• On DVD or streaming : August 5, 2014
• Cast : Karen Gillan , Katee Sackhoff , Brenton Thwaites
• Director : Mike Flanagan
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Relativity Media
• Genre : Horror
• Run time : 105 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : terror, violence, some disturbing images and brief language
• Last updated : March 2, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

The Orphanage

Best horror movies, scary movies for kids.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

clock This article was published more than  10 years ago

‘Oculus’ movie review: A satisfyingly scary ghost story

A good carpenter never blames his tools. But neither does he go out and buy a new hammer every time he makes another cabinet.

Using the most tried and true of techniques and material, " Oculus " director Mike Flanagan has crafted a satisfyingly old-fashioned ghost story that, in its evocation of shivery dread, is the most unnerving poltergeist picture since " The Conjuring ."

A remake of an earlier short — shot by Flanagan on the cheap in and around Baltimore in 2005 — “Oculus” is the story of a haunted antique mirror, known as the Lasser Glass. Over the centuries since its fabrication in 1754, dozens of owners have experienced madness and mysterious, often violent death. The movie depicts the efforts of two near-victims to destroy the cursed object.

The idea of an artifact inhabited by a malevolent supernatural entity is, of course, nothing new. Nor are such horror-movie tropes as the spooked dog, the staticky television set or camcorder surveillance ( thank you , " Paranormal Activity "). Yet it's what Flanagan does with these well-worn tools here that counts. The filmmaker may not break new ground, but he marshals each of these tools — and more — with the skill of a pro, laying down a fresh path through familiar territory and deftly skirting cliche.

Brenton Thwaites and Karen Gillan play 20-something siblings Tim and Kaylie, both of whom, as we see in flashbacks, were almost killed 10 years ago when their parents (Katee Sackhoff and Rory Coch­rane) went bonkers after purchasing the mirror. In the intervening decade, Tim has been locked up in a mental facility for the killing of his father, while Kaylie has put her time to good use in tracking down the home accessory, which she blames for what happened.

Set just after Tim’s release from the hospital, the movie is structured around Kaylie’s elaborate plan to exonerate Tim by proving that the events of 10 years earlier were the results of the mirror’s manipulative mind games. To this end, she has set up video cameras and other high-tech equipment in their old house to document the activities of the mirror, out of which she hopes to lure whoever — or whatever — is possessing it.

“Hello again,” Kaylie whispers to this home furnishing from hell, adding tauntingly, “You must be hungry.”

What Flanagan gets exactly right about this far-fetched scenario is that he never shows us the “you” Kaylie’s talking to. To be sure, the trailer suggests there is at least one creepy woman with devil eyes living in the mirror, but you would be wrong to assume that the tale is that straightforward.

Kaylie and Tim’s old house also is haunted by those scariest of demons: memories.

Juvenile actors Garrett Ryan and Annalise Basso play the sibling protagonists as children, popping up in the old house like they still live there — which, in a figurative sense, they do. The younger actors appear both in flashback sequences and in scenes in which their characters seem to be interacting with their adult selves. Whether it’s fantasy or mental illness is unclear.

That’s the most satisfying aspect of “Oculus” — the way in which Flanagan plays on the power of imagination. Shunning traditional flashback techniques, he tells the story in a twisty, perception-distorting way that messes with the audience’s heads as much as it does with Tim’s and Kaylie’s.

In that sense, using a mirror as the central metaphor for our darkest fears is a fairly brilliant strategy. When Kaylie and Tim look into the glass, of course, they see nothing but their own reflections.

★ ★ ★ R. At area theaters. Contains creepy, violent images and brief crude language. 105 minutes.

Den of Geek

Oculus Review

Oculus delivers traditional chills, fine performances and a genuinely scary horror experience.

• Share on Facebook (opens in a new tab)
• Share on Twitter (opens in a new tab)
• Share on Linkedin (opens in a new tab)
• Share on email (opens in a new tab)

Oculus is the kind of horror movie that hits my genre sweet spot, and as a result may be the best of its kind I’ve seen in some time. Too many modern horror movies these days, it seems, fall into two categories: they either utilize the now-exhausted found footage format to tell their story, or the story itself is based on real-life terrors like home invasion or pure shock tactics like the Saw series. Oculus uses traditional filmmaking techniques to tell a story that is firmly rooted in the supernatural, but like the best supernatural horror, it also employs a psychological aspect that keeps both the characters and the viewers off-balance.

Oculus also gives you characters to care about – another rarity in too much modern genre fare. The story is told in two timelines, past and present, and director Mike Flanagan (who also co-wrote the screenplay) is able to confidently and easily show us how a childhood tragedy has permanently damaged the two siblings – Kaylie (Karen Gillan) and Tim (Brenton Thwaites) — at the center of the story and make them instantly sympathetic. While their actions as adults are questionable, they are clearly driven by the characters themselves and not based solely on the needs of the plot, which usually results in the protagonists acting or seeming stupid.

As the story unfolds, Kaylie is picking up Tim from the institution to which he’s been committed for 10 years following the violent deaths of their parents (played in flashbacks by Katee Sackhoff and Rory Cochrane). Kaylie brings Tim back to their old house, where we discover that she is convinced – after all this time – that an antique mirror known as the Lasser Glass is responsible for their parents’ demise. The Glass, it seems, is home to an evil, nameless entity that has been destroying lives and families for years. Tim, however, isn’t buying it – at least initially – using all the tools he’s learned in therapy to battle back against his sister’s bizarre assertions.

further reading: The Best Modern Horror Movies

Ad – content continues below

Kaylie, unfortunately, has used her job as an auction buyer to bring the Glass back into their possession, a decade after it first came into their lives and, in her view, ruined them. She has rigged the room in which the Glass resides with cameras and monitoring devices to capture the mirror in action and prove what it is capable of – while also setting a booby trap to destroy it if things go south. But the mirror has other plans, and soon Kaylie and Tim are caught in the grip of a malevolent power that they may be unable to contain or defeat.

Flanagan knows that the best horror is based not on jump scares (although he deploys those sparingly and effectively) but atmosphere, dread and the unseen. He’s helped by his tremendously game and strong cast. Cochrane and Sackhoff chillingly demonstrate how the mirror corrupts them in the flashback sequences. Doctor Who veteran Gillan is superb as the tightly wound and obsessive Kaylie and Thwaites brings intelligence and a dawning terror to Tim when he realizes that all his treatment has been essentially for nothing (the children who play the younger versions of Kaylie and Tim, Annalise Basso and Garrett Ryan, are excellent).

Flanagan’s real expertise comes in the film’s second half, as he almost seamlessly flips back and forth between the past and the present in a cascade of brilliantly staged sequences (the director also edited the film himself). The adult Kaylie may walk through a door and the younger one enters the room; as the shifts between past and present increase in speed and frequency, the results are truly disorienting. Both the characters and the viewers are unsure of where they are in time and space, a feat often achieved in literary horror but rarely captured so well on the screen.

There are echoes of films like The Shining and The Innocents here, but the dynamics of the plot are still fresh enough to keep Oculus from being outright derivative. Most refreshing of all is Flanagan’s refusal to explain what the mirror is, or what exactly it houses: the Lasser Glass just exists, and the lack of an origin story or detailed exposition of whatever resides inside it makes it that much more enigmatic and terrifying (yes, a haunted mirror can be both, amazingly enough). Too many horror films over-explain themselves these days, usually in service of laying the groundwork for a sequel or franchise (I’m looking at you, Sinister and Insidious ), and while I fervently hope that Oculus is successful, I also do not look forward to further films giving us the Lasser Glass’s origins in any more depth than we have now.

Great horror is about the past encroaching on the present, often with tragic results. It is safe to say that things don’t go well for Kaylie and Tim, who are both ultimately unable to shake off the horrific history of their family. But things have gone very well here for Flanagan, whose previous films were all little-seen, micro-budget indies. With Oculus , he has crafted a well-written, excellently-acted, moodily shot and expertly edited film that crackles with intensity and chills, doesn’t waste a minute of screen time and feels like a satisfyingly unsettling and frightening experience. It’s the finest horror movie I’ve seen in a few years, and I hope there’s more to come.

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+ , if that’s your thing!

Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!

Don Kaye | @donkaye

Don Kaye is an entertainment journalist by trade and geek by natural design. Born in New York City, currently ensconced in Los Angeles, his earliest childhood memory is…

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Fandango at Home
• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Civil War Link to Civil War
• Monkey Man Link to Monkey Man
• The First Omen Link to The First Omen

New TV Tonight

• Chucky: Season 3
• Mr Bates vs The Post Office: Season 1
• Fallout: Season 1
• Franklin: Season 1
• Dora: Season 1
• Good Times: Season 1
• Beacon 23: Season 2

Most Popular TV on RT

• Ripley: Season 1
• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• Parasyte: The Grey: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• Sugar: Season 1
• A Gentleman in Moscow: Season 1
• We Were the Lucky Ones: Season 1
• The Gentlemen: Season 1
• The Regime: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• Fallout Link to Fallout
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Best Movies of 2024: Best New Movies to Watch Now

25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Fallout First Reviews: A ‘Violent, Fun, Emotional, Epic’ Video Game Adaptation, Critics Say

CinemaCon 2024: Day 1 – WB Showcases Joker: Folie à Deux , Furiosa , and More

• Trending on RT
• Play Movie Trivia

Oculus Reviews

While it may have taken unconventional approaches to the visual language of haunted house movies, the narrative is messy and never offers up anything more than surface-level intrigue.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 20, 2023

We’re left with the terrifying fear that if Tim and Kaylie can lose themselves in the mirror’s reflection, so can we.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Feb 18, 2023

Flanagan's treatment elevates the material, both in his use of mind games and emotional complexity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 12, 2022

It may sound a bit ridiculous, but Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard do a fantastic job of making people question whether the threat to our characters is real or imagined right up until the very end of the film.

Full Review | Apr 14, 2021

The horror elements work because this is a character driven story and while there are blood and guts aplenty it is the intensity of the story and the performances that will stay with you.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 1, 2021

Mike Flanagan's debut to mainstream audiences is a tour de force of horror, seamlessly weaving between two timelines as he prepares us for a devastating gut-punch of an ending.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 29, 2020

While there are some solid scares and creepy scenes, considering the pieces, they never amount to much.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 8, 2020

Oculus is an ambitious horror film that doesn't quite reach its potential. While it has a strong cast ... the story just feels like it's spinning its wheels, trying to find the traction it needs to propel forward.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2020

Oculus is a smartly-plotted evil mirror film which slowly reveals itself as a haunting portrayal of child abuse. It's a nice light movie!

Full Review | Jun 30, 2020

The biggest misfortune in Oculus is that it's almost a good movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.7/5 | Nov 22, 2019

The final product is a beautifully shot and wonderful acted entry in the never-ending pool of niche horror movies looking to shock, scare, and unnerve.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.5/10 | Aug 8, 2019

Horror fans shouldn't miss Oculus; films as creepy as this one don't come along too often.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.6/10 | Jun 21, 2019

Mike Flanagan's Oculus does more to a familiar premise than most standard-issue scary movies out there.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 14, 2019

Ultimately, though, it is the characters that count, and Flanagan gives emotional resonance to the story of charming family undone by unexplained forces; and his actors go a long way in portraying this with honesty.

Full Review | Mar 5, 2019

A clever storyline keeps the pace, although it could be argued the film had too many storylines going for its running time.

Full Review | Feb 1, 2019

Oculus was actually awesome, even though I didn't have any expectations for it at all...happy to tell you that this one was well thought-out with some great performances.

Full Review | Jan 5, 2019

In some off-the-wall realm, Oculus works its seedy magic because the concept of frightening furniture and childhood disillusionment is not exactly what one would expect as a passable taunting tie-in of sorts.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 11, 2018

The acting and characters are solid enough, the general idea of the story is captivating and the atmosphere of the piece is genuinely disconcerting.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 1, 2018

The acting is solid, the camera work is noteworthy, and the story is well written.

Full Review | Oct 26, 2018

I thought that the storyline was original, awesome and definitely refreshing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 15, 2018

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

• DVD & Streaming
• Drama , Horror , Mystery/Suspense

Content Caution

In Theaters

• April 11, 2014
• Brenton Thwaites as Tim Russell; Garrett Ryan as Young Tim Russell; Karen Gillan as Kaylie Russell; Annalise Basso as Young Kaylie Russell; Katee Sackhoff as Marie Russell; Rory Cochrane as Alan Russell; James Lafferty as Michael; Kate Siegel as Marisol; Miguel Sandoval as Dr. Graham

Home Release Date

• August 5, 2014
• Mike Flanagan

Distributor

• Relativity Media

Movie Review

Tim Russell is 21 years old. And for the last 11 years, he’s been a resident of St. Aidan’s Mental Facility. The reason for his long stay? He was accused of killing his father.

At the time of the alleged murder, Tim insisted that his father was possessed by a supernatural antique mirror, and under its influence he had shot and killed Tim’s mother. So for the last 11 years, doctors have worked extensively with Tim to help him understand that there is no such thing as a possessed mirror. And that his father’s obvious delusional instability (it’s clear he’s killed his wife, but unclear why) has been passed along to his similarly delusional son.

Tim’s finally accepted that explanation after a decade of therapy. It was all just a fantasy, he’s realized, a horrific hallucination that was never real.

But just try to tell that to Kaylie, Tim’s older sister.

Kaylie had to deal with the aftermath of her parents’ death on her own as she was shuffled through the foster-care system. And for her, no reality is more certain than the fact that a certain centuries-old mirror—known as the Lassar Glass, named after its first unfortunate owner in 1754—was responsible not only for her parents’ deaths, but for the deaths of some 45 other victims over the last four centuries.

Kaylie has painstakingly documented the Lassar Glass’ detrimental impact upon the individuals and families who’ve been unfortunate enough to possess it. And she can show that, without fail, it ends up possessing them . She’s committed to finding and destroying the mirror, which was sold during an estate sale following her parents’ deaths. And now as the employee for an auction company specializing in antiques, she’s finally found it once again.

Her plan? “Borrowing” it for a couple of days (she tells a co-worker she’s going to get a crack repaired) before it goes to its new owner. She’s determined to not let that happen. Katie, along with her reluctantly recruited brother, has other plans for it.

As it turns out, the mirror’s got other plans for them .

Positive Elements

Kaylie feels driven to prove her father’s innocence. She wants to establish that the Lassar Glass is a portal for supernatural evil that possesses and kills any individual or family that comes into close contact with it. Though her quest is grim, her selfless sleuthing is nevertheless commendable. And to counter every possible influence of the mirror she’s been able to uncover, Kaylie has also ingeniously constructed what she believes is a foolproof system to outsmart it.

It’s clear that Kaylie and Tim love and care for each other deeply and would do anything to protect each other as they strive to clear their family name. Likewise, their mother, Marie, loves her children … before she goes insane, that is.

Spiritual Elements

No surprise or spoiler here: The Lassar Glass is indeed seriously, violently, malevolently, hungrily haunted. At first it seems the mirror is haunted only by the ghost of a woman who manages to transfix and bedazzle Allen Russell, Tim and Kaylie’s father. He falls under the mirror’s thrall and begins acting increasingly erratically. Marie sees this and suspects he’s having an affair, slipping deeper and deeper into paranoia—and the mirror plays on her insecurities, heightening them cruelly to send her plunging off the deep end of sanity.

The mirror’s devilish influence includes killing plants and pets within a certain distance from it. But that’s just the beginning. Ghostly specters with silvery spooky eyes begin appearing from it as well. For much of the film, it’s just the woman, whose name is Marisol. It becomes apparent, though, that all of the mirror’s many victims now inhabit it. And so we eventually witness a small army of ghostly, ghastly undead trying to keep Tim and Kaylie from destroying their “home.”

Sometimes that means direct, chill-inducing confrontations as they shamble ominously toward Tim and Kaylie (both as adults and when they’re just children, via flashback). Other times, they work through wickedly nasty hallucinations. The film never offers an explanation for where these spectral interlopers come from or where their power is sourced. The closest we ever get to an answer is Allen telling his children, “I have seen the devil, and he is me.”

Sexual Content

Marie wears a nightgown unbuttoned all the way down the front. She pulls her underwear down slightly to look at a scar from a Cesarean section. Elsewhere, some of her outfits reveal cleavage.

Marie and Allen embrace and kiss and fall into bed together. Oral sex is implied. Her suspicion that her husband is having an affair gets reinforced when young Kaylie sees her dad embracing another woman in his office. Later, that pair is shown kissing. And slowly it also becomes evident that Allen is being seduced by Marisol. (Though Marisol’s visage is usually horrific, when Kaylie sees her, the specter looks like a normal woman, suggesting that Allen may see her that way as well.)

Kaylie and her fiancé, Michael, kiss and are shown in bed together. (She’s wearing a clingy nightie and he’s wearing boxers). They’re clearly cohabiting.

Violent Content

The opening scene features youngsters Kaylie and Tim hiding from their father, who’s pacing the house, hunting them with a gun. That sequence turns out to be a dream (in which he shoots his sister). But throughout the film, the original story from 11 years before is woven into the current narrative of Kaylie and Tim’s attempt to destroy the mirror. The horror they experienced as children is shown again, this time with Tim eventually pointing the gun at his father and his father grabbing it to squeeze the trigger to commit suicide.

Marie looks in the mirror and watches in horror as her C-section scar begins to tear open. When she tries to attack her children physically, Allen chains her up in their bedroom like an animal. Kaylie checks on her once, only to find that Mom has become ravenously wolf-like; she charges her daughter and gets yanked back at the end of her chain. We watch the older woman eat pottery and spit out her broken teeth. And Allen ultimately shoots Marie three times, killing her (as young Kaylie watches).

Elsewhere, grown-up Kaylie thinks she’s biting into an apple, but it’s actually a light bulb, which shreds her mouth. The camera spares nothing as she pulls out the shards. (That also turns out to be a hallucination.) Kaylie gets choked by both her mother and father in separate scenes.

Influenced by her hallucinations, Kaylie rams a pottery shard into Michael’s neck, killing him in yet another blood-spattered scene. Similarly confused, Allen tries to remove a stubborn Band-Aid with a staple remover, only to find he’s pulled out a fingernail. (There’s more blood, and by the end of the film, all his fingernails are gone.) In the film’s cruelest turn, one of the siblings accidentally kills the other; it’s a gory death involving an anchor swinging down from the ceiling.

Kaylie shows her brother gruesome crime scene photos of the mirror’s previous victims while relating the grisly ways they died.

Crude or Profane Language

A half-dozen s-words. God’s name is paired with “d‑‑n” two or three times. There’s one abuse of Jesus’ name. Milder profanities (“h‑‑‑”) are rare, but present.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Alan and Marie drink wine at dinner. As things begin to unravel, Marie turns to alcohol to cope. We see her with only a bottle of wine in front of her at dinner one night and watch as she drinks two glasses.

Oculus delivers a tense, terrifying take on the familiar haunted house template. Many mainstream reviewers are dishing out high praise for it, noting the intricate way director Mike Flanagan weaves the two separate timelines into a single horrifying narrative.

This review, however, is more interested in grappling with content and the bigger issues of worldview. Because while Oculus isn’t the most gruesome horror movie I’ve ever seen, it’s still more than bloody enough to well earn its R rating. Dreadfully disturbing scenes relentlessly focus on two young children being terrorized by both of their parents—one who’s seemingly been possessed and reduced to an evil automaton, the other who’s lost her mind in a way that leaves her feral and ferocious.

And we haven’t even gotten to Marisol and her cohorts yet.

As boogeywomen go, Marisol’s the kind who’ll make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. And when we eventually discover that she’s just one of many such spooks residing in the Lassar Glass, well, the freak-out factor spikes yet again.

Horror movies, of course, always invite you to root for the poor unfortunates who have to take on supernatural baddies like Marisol. And once upon a time, you could reliably count on the good guys finding a way to effectively combat if not permanently eradicate the evil encroaching upon them.

But ever since  The Ring started constricting around the throats of theatergoers back in 2002, directors seem to have lost their enthusiasm for letting good triumph. More often than not, today’s horror movies end in sickening despair—valiant efforts at resisting evil’s creeping, crawling, crouching ways notwithstanding.

So you can stop hoping to see any reflection of a mirror-free future for Kaylee and Tim. Oculus seems perversely, nihilistically determined not only to scare, but to vacuum up any shred of hope or sacrificial meaning into the dark supernatural void hidden behind the glass. Ultimately, Kaylie’s elaborate plans and dogged determination are simply no match for an evil that’s had hundreds of years to perfect its supernaturally murderous ways.

And God? He’s not in this picture at all.

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

Latest Reviews

The Greatest Hits

The First Omen

Wicked Little Letters

Weekly reviews straight to your inbox.

• pop Culture
• Facebook Navigation Icon
• Twitter Navigation Icon
• WhatsApp icon
• Instagram Navigation Icon
• Youtube Navigation Icon
• Snapchat Navigation Icon
• TikTok Navigation Icon
• pigeons & planes
• newsletters
• Youtube logo nav bar 0 youtube
• Instagram Navigation Icon instagram
• Twitter Navigation Icon x
• Facebook logo facebook
• TikTok Navigation Icon tiktok
• Snapchat Navigation Icon snapchat
• Apple logo apple news
• Flipboard logo nav bar 1 flipboard
• Instagram Navigation Icon google news
• WhatsApp icon whatsapp
• RSS feed icon rss feed

Complex Global

• united states
• united kingdom
• netherlands
• philippines
• complex chinese

Work with us

terms of use

privacy policy

cookie settings

california privacy

public notice

accessibility statement

COMPLEX participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means COMPLEX gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive.

© Complex Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Complex.com is a part of

TIFF Review: The Smart, Inventive "Oculus" Is the Best Horror Film of the Festival

This year's best Midnight Madness horror movie is upon us.

Image via Complex Original

Review by Matt Barone ( @MBarone )

Director: Mike Flanagan Stars: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane, Annalise Basso, Garrett Ryan Ewald Running time: 105 minutes ✭✭✭✭✭✭✭✭✭✩ Score: 9/10

The Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness program" target="_blank">Midnight Madness section is notorious for its raucous audiences, those ravenous horror movie junkies who stay out until past 2 a.m. eight nights in a row every September just to be on the cutting edge of the genre's next wave. Sunday night, before the Midnight Madness legion finally settled in for 2013 edition of TIFF's fourth MM film, Oculus , the party atmosphere was in full effect. A pungent air of Hennessy filled the theatre. An inflatable, camouflage-colored beach ball the size of a medicine ball was punched all around the crowd, including the upper balcony. The energy was high, especially when programmer Colin Geddes stepped on stage to introduce the film shortly after midnight. Everyone was ready to rock out to what Geddes has labeled this year's equivalent to Insidious ">Insidious , a 2010 Midnight Madness premiere itself.

But then a strange thing happened—the usually live-wire crowd went silent. For the next 100 minutes, you could hear a pin drop. Well, except for the moments where everyone broke out into loud applause. But for the most part, one quick glance around the Ryerson Theatre's attendees confirmed one thing: There wasn't a single person whose eyes weren't facing forward, directly at the screen, in pure, nerve-wracked silence. Oculus  had them all. And it wouldn't let go, from its instantly brooding opening to the disturbingly grim ending.

Get ready, horror fans, because, whenever Oculus  gets picked by a worthy distribution company and hits a theatre near you, you're in for something really special.

Fortunately, someone—i.e., the folks behind the indie Intrepid Pictures —did. Working with a larger budget, Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard haven't held anything back with Oculus . With their ambitions sky-high, the filmmakers have pulled off that rarest of horror movie tricks: creating something wholly original. It's supernatural, but not exactly a ghost story. Blood and viscera flow, yet it's not a gore-fest by any means. Character-driven and audacious in its mythology, Oculus  is an intelligent horror fan's dream come true.

The antagonist is an antique mirror. More specifically, it's the Lasser Glass, a piece of reflective, decorative furniture that dates back to the 1750s. In 2002, Alan ( Rory Cochrane ) and Marie Russell ( Katee Sackhoff ) bought the mirror and placed inside their new home's office, where Alan works. As their children, 10-year-old Tim ( Garrett Ryan ) and 12-year-old Kaylie ( Annalise Russo ), watch helplessly, something inside the mirror sends both of their parents into different states of insanity before, through a nightmarish series of events one night, mom and dead are killed. Flash forward 11 years, when a grown-up Tim ( Brenton Thwaites ) comes home from a mental facility and reunites with Kaylie ( Karen Gillan ), who's now obsessed with the Lasser Glass and determined to somehow destroy it. Having rigged their old childhood home with cameras to record what happens (thankfully, Oculus  never flips to the found-footage style), Kaylie convinces Michael to spend the night with her there and confront the mirror and whatever kind of malevolent forces it's about to send their way.

The beauty of Oculus is that—save for spoilers, of course—there's no way to predict what it's in store for Kaylie and Michael. Without giving too much away, Flanagan's film is comparable to Insidious in its dedication to looney-tunes imagery and ideas, but there's no carnival funhouse trope like The Further or iconic ghouls like the red-skinned demon or the manly bride. Oculus uses memories as its scare tactics—aggressively blurring reality for Kaylie and Michael, the Lasser Glass is a manipulator more than a monster. The present collides with the past; the characters' younger and older versions continually switch places, as do the house's various rooms and, even more effectively, everyday objects—just wait until you see what Flanagan's able to do with an apple and a lightbulb. Going H.A.M. with the characters' perceptions throughout its final act, Oculus  is superbly edited. The leaps through time and space are all seamless and perfectly disorienting.

Films like Oculus are why genre fans flock to TIFF's Midnight Madness screenings. They want to be freaked out into a soundless submission—that just happens so infrequently, but that's what Mike Flanagan's all about. With Absentia and now Oculus , the upstart Salem, MA, native is gaining a reputation for mature, smart, eyes-peeled-to-the-screen horror.

Good news: He's already working on his next one—the other day, news surfaced that Flanagan's been given the money to re-team with Oculus co-star Katee Sackhoff for Somnia , a "a haunting, emotionally absorbing horror film about an orphaned child whose dreams—and nightmares—manifest physically as he sleeps." Midnight Madness 2014, here we come.

SHARE THIS STORY

Sign up for the

Complex Newsletter

Your leading source for what’s now and what’s next in Music, Style, Sports, and Pop Culture.

By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you’re agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our

Latest in Pop Culture

| BY JAELANI TURNER-WILLIAMS

Ice Spice to Make Acting Debut Alongside Denzel Washington in Spike Lee's 'High and Low'

Bobb'e J. Thompson Says Tracy Morgan Snatched Him Up and Cursed Him Out When He Was 7

| BY COMPLEX

Predicting Our Dream WrestleMania 41 Card

| BY MARK ELIBERT

‘Rap Sh!t’ Star Aida Osman Jokes About Show’s Cancellation by Seemingly Shading Jerrod Carmichael’s HBO Series

| BY BRANDON CONSTANTINE

Damson Idris and Teyana Taylor Help Reintroduce Hennessy

Hennessy USA

| BY TRACE WILLIAM COWEN

John Cena on Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel’s Past 'Fast & Furious' Beef: 'There Can Only Be One'

| BY ALEX OCHO

‘Game of Thrones’ Star Kit Harington Explains Why Jon Snow Spinoff Is Now 'Off the Table'

First 'Joker: Folie à Deux' Teaser Trailer Sees Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga Mixing Madness With the Healing Power of Music

Sylvester Stallone Accused of Belittling 'Tulsa King' Extras, Director Denies Allegations as Casting Agency Exits Series

| BY TARA MAHADEVAN

Billy Dee Williams Defends Actors Using Blackface: 'I Love That Kind of Stuff'

Oculus Review

13 Jun 2014

104 minutes

Writer-director Mike Flanagan’s troll abduction story Absentia was an outstanding direct-to-DVD horror film, as much for its odd attitude and unusual character drama as its scares. With Oculus — an expansion of his 2006 short Oculus: Chapter 3 — The Man With A Plan — he successfully transfers his offbeat sensibilities to the big screen. It’s in the low-key, dread-infused mode of recent horror hits like Mama, Sinister and Insidious, and revives the occasional sub-genre of ‘haunted mirror’ horror (dating back to the 1945 Dead Of Night) without going down the expected there’s-a-zombie-behind-you road.

It’s structurally unusual in a way that gets into the story swiftly, confining 95 per cent of the film to a single location but at different times. The sibling leads’ childhood encounter with the monstrous mirror is intercut with their daring, meticulously planned, obsessively determined second go-round with the vampire looking glass. Kaylie (Karen Gillan) is controlling, neurotic and fanatically vengeful, while her brother (Brenton Thwaites) has had years of therapy to convince him what happened was all in his head and is reluctant to get back into the insanity. It’s an uncommon relationship in horror, and Flanagan makes the characters intriguingly cracked in different ways. Kaylie makes elaborate precautions, which include an anchor on a timer aimed at the mirror and a doomed dog. She rattles off an amusing history of the haunting, which has killed at least 45 people, while Tim reluctantly remembers how bad things were as he resists getting caught up again.

It’s impressively acted by Gillan (with American accent) and Thwaites, backed up by Annalise Basso and Garrett Ryan as young Kaylie and Tim and good, simmering work from Rory Cochrane and Katee Sackhoff as the possessed parents. It has its share of shocks, but works more on a level of stretched nerves and general creepiness — and is less inclined to let its characters off easily than most recent horrors.

Related Articles

Movies | 09 09 2021

Movies | 28 10 2020

Movies | 17 08 2020

Movies | 06 09 2017

Movies | 10 04 2017

Movies | 25 09 2016

Movies | 08 09 2016

Movies | 23 06 2016

'Oculus' Review: A Mind-Bending New Horror Franchise Is Born

These days it feels like every horror movie can be easily categorized. Either it's a possession movie, a found footage movie, a slasher movie or some inane combination. Finding something different is rare.  Mike Flanagan 's Oculus , at the very least, strives to be different. Combining elements from several subgenre columns into something that feels new and fresh, Oculus is the story of a brother and sister who try to destroy a haunted mirror that drives people to wild hallucinations, blurring lines between what's real and what's not.

Flanagan's script is a psychological jumping bean as it hops wildly between multiple timelines, putting the audiences in the shoes of the characters, everyone totally unaware of precisely what's going on. The whole thing has a fluid feeling that's not exactly innovative, but exciting enough to potentially kick off a new franchise. Read more of our Oculus movie review below.

Karen Gillan ( Doctor Who, Guardians of the Galaxy ) is Kaylie, a young woman reunited with her brother Tim ( Malificent's Brenton Thwaites ) as he's let out of mental institution. Right away she tells him she's found it. The haunted mirror that, just maybe, ruined their lives with its wicked ways. Thanks to a ripe and fascinating backstory spanning generations (surely included for possible sequels and prequels), we're initially lead to believe Kaylie. However, as the film continues on, the validity of her claims that this mirror is haunted are called into question. Then, just as we think we've uncovered the truth, a series of flashbacks we've been watching (featuring Kaylie and Time as young kids along with their parents, played by Empire Records ' Rory Cochrane and Battlestar Galactica' s Katee Sackhoff ) start to become more and more prevalent.

Are we in the past? Are we in the present? Is this really happening? Is it not? We can never quite tell. That's in large part due to Flanagan's use of cameras. Whether it be the diagetic cameras Kaylie uses to document the events, or non-diagetic cameras perched high above the action giving the audience a powerful, off-putting feeling, reality and perspective are always in question. Nothing ever is clear, and that makes things all the more frightening.

As Kaylie, Gillan is a formidable, captivating lead. Thwaites, on the other hand isn't quite as natural a performer. Together, they do a solid job even if they're eclipsed by their younger counterparts, played by  Annalise Basso and Ryan Garrett . Those two young actors give the flashbacks real energy and make what feels like a secondary story into much more.

One downside to Oculus is, while it's fun to watch, and and a puzzle worth unraveling, it's never quite that scary. There's plenty of tension, a few jump scares, some gleeful turn-your-head goriness, but never anything that'll keep you awake at night. The film's power comes not from its scares, but from its mystery.

Oculus leaves about 500 million options open for sequels, prequels or spinoffs and I hope we see just that. This is a really interesting, worthy conceit done incredibly well. Fright fans will be pleased.

/Film rating: 7 of 10

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Oculus (2013)

June 12, 2014 by Luke Owen

Oculus , 2014

Directed by Mike Flanagan Starring Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane, Analise Basso and Garrett Ryan

SYNOPSIS: A woman tries to exonerate her brother, who was convicted of murder, by proving that the crime was committed by a supernatural phenomenon.

Over the last decade or so, the horror genre hasn’t really turned out many “classics”. Despite a great showing of movies at FrightFest and Grimm Up North every year, it always seems to be the gutter-trash “jump scare” horrors that make it in front of general audiences. Oculus certainly isn’t a game-changer, nor is it a “classic”, but it’s easily one of the best horror movies you’ll see this year.

Based on Flanagan’s own short Oculus: Chapter 3 – The Man with a Plan , Oculus plays as a sequel to a film we never saw as a brother and sister duo, Tim and Kaylie, return to their family home to tackle a strange occurrence that happened during their childhood. After their father purchased a beautifully designed mirror, he started to show signs of losing his mind and he eventually killed his wife and was shot dead by Tim. Now that Kaylie has tracked down the mirror, she intends to prove her father innocent and show that the mirror is pure evil.

What’s great about Oculus is that it doesn’t give us the full back story straight off and instead drip feeds you information as the film progresses, which means you are essentially watching two films that cut between each other. This works especially well as the film makes its way towards the third act as the mirror plays tricks on Kaylie and Tim (as well as the audience) and we see both films play at the same time. It’s a hard one to explain, but it’s a superb experience.

Karen Gillan (who is set to kick arse in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy ) is fantastic as the determined Kaylie. Her brother Tim (Brenton Thwaites) may be viewed as the “crazy” one of the duo as he was incarcerate following their father’s death, but it’s Kaylie who really shows signs of losing her mind in the early goings. She has become obsessed with this mirror and in a wonderful piece of exposition, she explains to a series of cameras she has set up just where the mirror came from and what it’s done in the past. It’s a clever way of setting up the mirror’s evil while strengthening and furthering Kaylie’s character. Thwaites also does a great job as the recovering Tim and he draws genuine sympathy from the audience as he tries to move on from his previous life while trying to help his sister get past hers. Credit should also be given to Analise Basso and Garrett Ryan who play the younger versions of Gillan and Thwaites. The pair have a big job on their hands but, for young actors, they really show conviction in their characters and you can feel that they are younger versions of their older counterparts.

It’s also refreshing to see a horror movie that doesn’t rely on the now standard “jump scare” tactic to frighten its audience. Instead, Oculus aims to unnerve those watching it with creepy visuals, suggestion and drawn out moments of tension. There are great directorial and writing flourishes as Flanagan pulls some beautiful ‘bait-and-switch’ moments as if the mirror is influencing the audience as well as the characters. Flanagan doesn’t play his hand too soon and he creates a fantastic atmosphere that will have you itching around your seat while gripping the arm chairs. It’s not exactly In Fear , but it can certainly make you uncomfortable.

Oculus is a film that shows that genuinely good horror does exist and it deserves to be seen by all. It takes its time, it draws you in and – while the finale is a bit lame – it does a great job in unnerving its audience. Gillan and Thwaites are fantastic and the way Flanagan blurs the lines between past and present via the evil of the mirror is a touch of genius. Oculus may not be seen as a “classic”, but it’s brilliant movie.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.

You can watch a video of Luke Owen meeting the mirror from Oculus here .

What Should We Watch Tonight? A Movie Podcast

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:

The Prisoner: The Classic British TV Series Revisited

The craziest takashi miike movies, essential forgotten 90s thrillers you have to see, robin of sherwood: still the quintessential take on the robin hood legend.

The Essential New French Extremity Movies

Characters Appearances We Want To See In Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four Movie

Not for the Faint of Heart: The Most Shocking Movies of All Time

13 Underrated Horror Sequels That Deserve More Love

10 Crazy Horror Movies You Need To See

What If? Five Marvel Movies That Were Almost Made

• Comic Books
• Video Games
• Toys & Collectibles
• Articles and Opinions
• About Flickering Myth
• Write for Flickering Myth
• Advertise on Flickering Myth
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy

Movie reviews, Oscar predictions, and more!

Oculus Movie Review — A Stylish, Well-Acted Psychological Horror

Though it doesn’t quite reach the potential of its premise,  oculus  packs in enough tension to make it a solid horror movie.

Yet another entry in the psychological horror rooted in childhood emotional trauma genre. Running in two different timelines, Oculus follows a brother and sister as they try to destroy a mirror that contained the ghosts that haunted them in their childhood.

Although it is void of any big scares that would have made it the movie horror fans were looking for, Oculus  targets something far more terrifying. Your mind. Mike Flanagan’s focus on the feeling of dread and underlying darkness will take you, chill you to the bone, and make you reevaluate your own sanity, which is all we can ask for when it comes to the horror of today.

Shortly after his release, he meets with his older sister Kaylie ( Karen Gillan ), who his doctors warn did not have the benefit of therapy following their childhood trauma, which shows. Through her work at an auction house, Kaylie is able to track down the mirror that tormented them in their youth. Almost immediately after her brother’s release (and when I say immediately I mean at lunch on the way home from the hospital) Kaylie reveals her plan to document the mirror’s evil intentions and powers before finally destroying it. Not the best idea ever.

The mirror is able to change your perception of reality. So when a man thinks he is taking off his band-aid with a staple remover, he is actually digging into his flesh. Isn’t it a lovely image? However, it isn’t the gore that is terrifying, it is the idea of not being in control.

The siblings return to their childhood home armed with cameras, timers (reminding them to eat and drink), thermometers, and an enormous anchor designed to destroy the mirror should anything happen to the pair. Kaylie even has her boyfriend Michael ( James Lafferty ) call them every hour to ensure they are still alive, although he does this under the impression that she is fearful of her brother. Nice. It’s clear Kaylie has been planning this for a while. Eventually, the film spirals into a dark pit of disturbing images that make the siblings question their own sanity.

But where the film finally does fail is where countless horror and psychological thrillers fail. Once you are able to forgive the screenwriters, who also must be blamed for some clunky dialogue, for the well-realized yet terribly feigned procession of scenes that build up to the climax, we are let down by an inevitable final act twist that we can see coming a mile away.

In the end, Oculus doesn’t become the film we wanted it to be. Its brilliant first two acts suggest that there may be something new and fresh hidden underneath, but it is never fully realized. Either way, the final product is a beautifully shot and wonderful acted entry in the never-ending pool of niche horror movies looking to shock, scare, and unnerve.

Oculus  is available on Digital HD on Amazon!

Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 12 Years A Slave Movie Review — A Beautiful, Unflinching Film
• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Nominations: Snubs and Surprises
• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Predictions: Best Picture (Updated 2/16)
• Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Predictions: Best Director (Is Alfonso Cuarón a Lock to Win?)

One thought on “Oculus Movie Review — A Stylish, Well-Acted Psychological Horror”

• Pingback: Film Review: "Hush" (★★★½) | Smash Cut Reviews

Comments are closed.

Oculus Movie Review

Written by Karin Crighton

Official Site

Directed by Mike Flanagan Written by Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard, based on a short by Jeff Howard, Mike Flanagan, and Jeff Seidman 2013, 105 minutes, Rated R Theatrical release on April 11th, 2014

Starring: Brenton Thwaites as Tim Russell Karen Gillan as Kaylie Russell Katee Sackhoff as Marie Russell Rory Cochrane as Alan Russell Annalise Basso as young Kaylie Garrett Ryan as young Tim

Tim (Brenton Thwaites) is celebrating his 21st birthday with a festive release from the insane asylum. He’s been incarcerated for eleven years after shooting his father in self-defense. The story he told the police back in 2002 was that ghosts haunting the antique mirror in his father’s study had driven his parents mad and he had to kill his father to save his sister Kaylie. Years of intense therapy have convinced him it wasn’t true and he’s ready to move on with a normal life with his sister by his side. Problem is, Kaylie still believes it was ghosts. And she wants to fight back.

There’s a lot of potential in Oculus but it loses steam as soon as Kaylie (played by Karen Gillan with a near-flawless American accent) and Tim enter their unsellable childhood home. Kaylie has rigged the place with the latest in technology in an attempt to outwit the murderous mirror, and her explanation of the oculus’ legend goes on and on. While necessary, it gets a bit monotonous. Tim starts out with fire in his heart; Kaylie seems to be spiraling into madness just when he has recovered and he is frustrated and frightened for her. But Thwaites is given nothing to do with these emotions; it all feels like a lame duck attempt to sway Kaylie with words when he could easily just pick her up and carry her outside. They hug immediately upon his release at the hospital; physical or emotional distance isn’t a problem with these siblings. Instead, he sees one sign of evidence that the mirror is possessed and that central conflict goes out the window. Tim and Kaylie watch along with us as writer/director Mike Flanagan shows us what “really” happened eleven years ago as their mother goes mad, their father fades into his own mind, and they attempt to get help in vain. It’s kinda cool to watch young Tim and older Kaylie inhabit the same screen on several occasions, but that alone doesn’t help the story save remind us they’re only mirroring the past (get it – mirror ?). It makes sense for the child versions of Kaylie and Tim to be so helpless, but it’s a little annoying to watch adult Kaylie and Tim fail to learn anything from their mistakes and make no real attempt to escape history repeating itself.

I wish Flanagan had dived deeper into this idea. There’s a scene in which Kaylie reminds Tim that the mirror “ate” their lab. Tim tells her she doesn’t remember that the family dog contracted parvo, and had to be put down. The brief moment where we do not know which story is true is the most interesting of Oculus. Tim tells Kaylie that mental illness runs in their family and I hoped we’d find out sooner or later that all of the previous victims were relatives; that this is all a schizophrenic dream of older Tim after he watched his father strangle his sister. It wouldn’t even matter then if they repeated history in that version, the point is that he genuinely tried to move on and failed.

But that doesn’t happen. Tim and Kaylie don’t learn anything. They don’t get the forgiveness of the parents they abandoned or killed, they don’t discover why the mirror is possessed, and they don’t explain what happens to the spirits trapped by the mirror.

The acting is solid in the absence of tight direction; Gillan and Thwaites give solid performances that perhaps lack the warmness we know them capable of. The breakout performances come from their on-screen parents Rory Cochrane and Katee Sackhoff. Cochrane delivers a sharply funny and frighteningly dark performance as Alan. He surrenders to his own paternal failings in a heartbreaking finale that devastates. Sackhoff is achingly vulnerable and open as a wife fearing a crumbling marriage, a mother resenting her children, and a woman coping with the inevitability of age.

The editing is excellent; the jump-cuts are lighting quick and the transitions between 2002 and 2013 are perfect, but that’s the only thing moving Oculus forward.

This page includes affiliate links where Horror DNA may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

• Volcanic UFO Mysteries
• EXHUMED: A History of Zombies
• Wyrd and Other Derelicitions
• The Wretched
• Karin Crighton
• Mike Flanagan
• Jeff Howard

OBEY - CONSUME

Hit the buttons below to follow us, you won't regret it...

Katee Sackhoff stars in the horror-thriller 'Oculus.' (John Estes / Relativity Media)

• Copy article link

Brenton Thwaites and Karen Gillian star in the horror-thriller 'Oculus.' (John Estes / Relativity Media)

Brenton Thwaites stars in the horror-thriller 'Oculus.' (John Estes / Relativity Media)

Annalise Basso (left) and Garrett Ryan star in the horror-thriller 'Oculus.' (John Estes / Relativity Media)

'Oculus' movie review: Low-budget horror film offers effective scares

• Mike Scott, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
• Apr 9, 2014
• 3 min to read

"Oculus" is a time bomb of a psychological horror film. It starts slowly (tick-tick-tick), with a lot of talking and a touch of too-coy-by-degrees table-setting (tick-tick-tick). But while you're wondering when things are going to pick up, director Mike Flanagan's film is also slowly building suspense (tick-tick-tick).

By the time it gets down to business about 27 minutes in, the fuse has been lit and it's hard not to want to stick around to see what happens when things finally go ka-boom.

And they do go ka-boom eventually, albeit figuratively more than literally. This, after all, is a film from the low-budget horror-house run by producer Jason Blum, which means we get a small cast, a limited number of sets -- and no huge explosions or giant freaking robots. In the case of "Oculus," which opens Friday (April 11) that isn't necessarily a liability.

That's because this is a "haunted object" film, part of that genre in which demonic forces possess an otherwise unthreatening item that some poor, unsuspecting schmo couldn't possibly predict would wreak havoc in his life. In "Oculus," that item is a haunted mirror, which -- as often is the case with a film such as this -- sounds more punchline-ready than the filmmakers probably intended.

But in addition to helping to tame a film's budget, haunted objects films can be remarkably effective when it comes to putting a scare into an audience. As Alfred Hitchcock taught us, few things are as terrifying as everyday objects (like, say, a bunch of birds) that have broken bad.

At least, that's the case when it's done right. And Flanagan and company mostly get it right in "Oculus," resulting in a reasonably intense and suspenseful film. It's also a film that relies less on blood and violence when compared to many other modern horror films -- although it is by not means devoid of it -- and more on story.

Of course, the haunted mirror in "Oculus" isn't just some ordinary, got-it-at-Target wall hanging. This is an antique piece with a history, as we learn. Also learning that lesson: siblings Kaylie and Tim (played by Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaits).

When we meet them, they are young adults, 11 years removed from a horrific night involving a certain antique mirror -- horrific enough for Tim to have spent the intervening years under professional psychiatric care. But Flanagan parses out the details of that event bit by bit, ramping up the suspense as his story builds.

By the time we find out the gory details, we've also learned that while Tim was hospitalized, the obsessed Kaylie spent years researching the history of the mirror. The results of her investigation have firmed up her conviction that she and Tim are obligated to destroy the thing.

There are two problems with that plan, though. First, Kaylie will have to deprogram Tim, whose doctors convinced him that the strange events he thinks he experienced 11 years prior are largely a figment of his imagination. Secondly, and more importantly, is the fact that haunted objects generally don't like being destroyed. What's more, they'll do anything to preserve themselves.

When skeptical Tim and gung-ho Kaylie show up at their childhood home to set things right, they naturally get far more than even they bargained for, as the mirror in question exhibits a knack for getting into their heads.

In the process, Flanagan walks a fine storytelling line. He doesn't just switch back and forth between Tim and Kaylie's current ordeal and their 11-years-prior backstory. Rather, he blends them, as the mirror forces the older Tim and Kaylie to relive that harrowing night. In so doing, Flanagan uses the backstory to inform the audience of the details of how the whole thing started, while at the same time using it to terrorize Tim and Kaylie, who aren't quite sure if what they are seeing -- and doing -- is real or not.

That opens the door for what might be Flanagan's most clever trick in "Oculus," in which he does an end-around on the age-old horror-film cliche in which characters stick around far too long in a clearly dangerous situation when any sane person would have hoofed it for the hills.

When things get truly bizarre, Kaylie and Tim want to escape. They want to run. They want to be hill-bound. But that mirror has other plans.

Granted, the Mobile, Ala.-shot "Oculus" takes a bit of patience on the part of moviegoers, who must sit through that somewhat flaccid opening 27 minutes. But if they do, they'll find themselves held similarly captive by Flanagan's unsettling story.

3 stars, out of 5

Snapshot : A psychological horror film about two now-grown siblings who, 11 years after a horrific night in their childhood home, return to the scene of the crime to take revenge on the haunted mirror that caused it all.

What works : Director Mike Flanagan does a nice job of generating suspense, while at the same time cleverly subverting at least one age-old horror-film cliche.

What doesn't : Although it eventually picks up, things gets off to a slow, talky start.

Cast : Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaits, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane, Annalise Basso, Garrett Ryan. Director : Mike Flanagan. Rating : R, for terror, violence, some disturbing images and brief language. Running time : 1 hour 45 minutes. Where : Find New Orleans and Baton Rouge showtimes .

Oculus (United States, 2013)

For a horror movie, Oculus is surprisingly lean on the scares. It's more interested in playing tricks with perception and bending reality. Ambitious material for director/editor Mike Flanagan (expanding from his award-winning short) and, if he doesn't fully achieve his goals, he can at least be lauded for trying something different. Oculus isn't cut from the generic whole cloth of seemingly every other horror film. It tries to be distinctive not only in the way the narrative unfolds but in retaining its convictions to the very end.

The biggest hurdle faced by Oculus relates to the set-up and that's the area in which it strains credulity to the breaking point. The central conceit establishes that an ancient mirror is a gateway of evil. The specifics aren't divulged but the mirror can warp reality and possibly provide a conduit by which demons or evil spirits can enter our world. The film's leading lady, Kaylie Russell (Karen Gillan), is aware of the mirror's pernicious nature. Her intention is to destroy it. But, in the name of science, she intends to make video recordings of it and run tests, thereby allowing it the opportunity to twist her perceptions. For someone with such a single-minded goal and a clear-headed approach to it, Kaylie makes a series of boneheaded decisions.

She is joined in her endeavor by her brother, Tim (Brenton Thwaites), who is newly released from a mental asylum. Together, they plan to exorcise the evil, but only after assembling an airtight case establishing its responsibility for a series of past murders. Oculus interweaves Kaylie and Tim's present with flashbacks of what happened to them a dozen years ago when their family moved into the house and took possession of the mirror. In less than two weeks, a happy family is torn apart with Kaylie's mother, Marie (Katee Sackhoff), and father, Alan (Rory Cochrane), falling prey to the mirror.

For a while, Flanagan takes his story down a fascinating path. What if the mirror is just a mirror and Kaylie has devised an elaborate supernatural mythos to explain acts of random, mundane cruelty? Tim provides the voice of reason, offering counter-arguments to every one of Kaylie's points. Flanagan eventually abandons this and concedes that the mirror is a source of evil but it leaves one wondering whether the road not taken might have led in a more interesting direction.

As the night wears on, past collides with present. This part of the film is effectively presented. We're never sure what's real, what events are memories, and how to distinguish illusion from truth. The audience becomes complicit; we're as uncertain as the characters. It's a bold way to allow the story to unfold but it leeches away terror in favor of intellectual uncertainty. Oculus becomes more of a puzzle than a haunted house story. There are some genuine shocks but not many "boo!" moments. The movie's most unsettling scene occurs when Kaylie takes a bite of an apple.

The cast lacks star power, demanding that Oculus succeed or fail based on intrinsic elements rather than the appeal of a headlining A-lister. Sci-fi fans will recognize a couple of familiar faces. For several years, Karen Gillan played Amy Pond, faithful sidekick to Matt Smith's incarnation of Doctor Who . Katee Sackhoff was Starbuck in Ron Moore's reimaging of Battlestar Galactica . Breton Thwaites has a nice TV-centric resume and Rory Cochrane has been in the business for a couple of decades toiling away on TV and in mostly indie productions. The performances are all solid although I was most taken by Gillan's no-nonsense approach to Kaylie. She doesn't seem like a typical horror movie heroine, although the stupidity of some of her actions defies logic.

With its overreliance on first-person narratives and by-the-numbers plotting, the horror genre has become stale and predictable. Oculus isn't a perfect antidote to all of this but it's sufficiently different to hold one's attention and what it lacks in the way of a fear factor it makes up for through suspense.

Comments Add Comment

• Halloween (1978)
• Frankenstein (1931)
• Blair Witch Project, The (1999)
• Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
• Captivity (2007)
• Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
• Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
• Circle, The (2017)
• Stuber (2019)
• Spies in Disguise (2019)
• Signal, The (2014)
• Giver, The (2014)
• (There are no more better movies of Brenton Thwaites)
• Gods of Egypt (2016)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017)
• (There are no more worst movies of Brenton Thwaites)
• Riddick (2013)
• (There are no more better movies of Katee Sackhoff)
• Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
• (There are no more worst movies of Katee Sackhoff)

Oculus (2013) : Movie Plot Ending Explained

Mike Flanagan’s direction Oculus, is a horror flick which has a non-linear narrative (his other popular films are Gerald’s Game  and Doctor Sleep ). The Oculus movie cast includes Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff, Rory Cochrane, Annalise Basso and Garrett Ryan in the lead roles. I got quite a few requests for this film, finally got watching it, so let’s get going. This is not an Oculus movie review, this is the plot and ending of Oculus Explained, so spoilers ahead!

Hollywordle – Check out my new Hollywood Wordle game!

Where To Watch?

To find where to stream any movie or series based on your country, use This Is Barry’s Where To Watch .

Oh, and if this article doesn’t answer all of your questions, drop me a comment or an FB chat message, and I’ll get you the answer .  You can find other film explanations using the search option on top of the site.

The strength of the film is the fantastic non-linear storytelling. However, it’s just a lot easier if we walked through the plot in a chronological order. I’d like to mention here that there are two ways to view this film – either as a horror (a paranormal mirror) or a psychological thriller (a crazy family) . Let’s do the paranormal approach first.

Oculus Explained: The Paranormal Version

It began 11 years ago.

A family moves into a new house. Alan, the dad. Marie, the mom. Kaylie, the elder daughter. Tim, the younger son. They buy new furniture. Amongst them is this one mirror. This mirror is evil. And as evil objects, this mirror takes a while before it extends its field of control and domination. The mirror uses illusions to trap its victims.

Dogs and Plants

Through the happenings of this film, we find out that the mirror feeds on dogs, plants, and human minds for its energy. The family dog begins to fall sick. One day, Marie locks the dog up in the office and when Alan gets back in the evening, the dog is gone. Presumably, the mirror consumed it.

Woman in the Office

Marisol, the evil in the mirror seduces Alan. This mind is slowly corrupted by the the mirror as it is in the office room where he is most of the times. Both Kaylie and Tim happen to see this woman in the office room on multiple occasions. Now, they both assume that it is a human woman. Marie has never seen her, although, she does hear Alan talking to someone when in his office room. Marie begins to suspect that Alan is having an affair. Alan begins to grow more distant. He is spoken to by Marisol quite often now and his mind is well possessed.

One day, Marie sees that Alan has bought a gun, apparently for protection. She asks him to lock it away, he agrees. As Marie leaves the room the mirror calls her a “Grotesque cow” in Alan’s voice. Marie is wounded deeply by this. She looks into the mirror and is presented with a distorted image of herself.

Marie Gets Possessed

After hearing from both her children about the “woman in the office”, Marie goes to the office to see a sheet filled with “Marisol”. Not knowing that is evil in the mirror, she concludes that Alan is having an affair. In her anger, she throws something in the direction of the mirror and she hits only the wall next to it. Right after this, Marie is possessed. Tim and Kaylie come to check on her, she chokes Tim. The two kids break away and run upstairs and lock themselves in their room. Just then Alan shows up. He quickly subdues Marie and knocks her out. For a short moment, Alan is in his senses and tries to call for help. But the mirror intercepts and tells Alan to chain and lock up Marie like an animal instead. Alan tells the kids that their mother is sick and they need to keep away from her. He ends up saying “we” instead of “I”, Kaylie notices but Alan doesn’t care to clarify who “we” is. Later, we are shown Alan taking some really bad looking food for Marie. He’s torturing her and making her eat plates. Marie loses her teeth as a result.

Kaylie Calls For Help

Alan has not been paying any bills or buying groceries. The TV goes out, and there is no more food. Kaylie tries telling Alan to get groceries and get their mom a doctor. He doesn’t seem to care. Kaylie decides to talk to her mother only to realize that she’s now a wild creature chained to the wall. Alan gets furious with the kids and grounds them. The kids try calling various doctors but constantly get the same voice asking them to tell their father to make the call. The two realize that there is something extremely strange going on. Kaylie tries to get a neighbour for help, but Alan talks to him like it’s nothing at all. Kaylie tells Tim that it’s time to get really brave. She means that busting their way out might be the only option.

Death Of Marie

The house finally loses power. Tim tries to get his dad to fix it and is greeted by Marisol. Tim freaks out and runs upstairs. At a later time, Tim peeks into the room to see that his dad looks into the mirror and then takes the gun out and loaded it. The kids decide that the mirror is the root of all evil and they need to smash it. But they are faced by Marisol and they run back up to their rooms. Alan goes up to Marie’s room and releases her. She goes banging on the kids’ door. Kaylie instructs Tim to run for the stairs and she goes out and clobbers Marie with a golf club. Tim runs down and Kaylie jumps on to the outside lawn from the window. Inside, Alan goes after Tim and fires a shot. Kaylie hears this and goes in, she finds Alan hiding and he’s signaling to get out. Marie attacks Kaylie and begins to choke her. For a small moment, Marie is back to her senses but Alan shoots and kills her. The kids run and try to smash the mirror but are hitting the wall instead. They realize that the mirror won’t allow them.

Death Of Alan

Alan enters the room and points the gun at Kaylie. He beings to say what the mirror tells him. Tim hits the gun out of Alan’s hands. Alan tries to choke Kaylie, Tim gets the gun and holds it to Alan. He stops choking Kaylie, turns around and get on his knees, puts his hands on the trigger. Alan is back to his senses (just like Marie) for a short bit and he asks Alan to run and pulls the trigger.

Case Concluded

The cops show up and declare that this was a case of a domestic violence where a husband has brutally killed a wife and his son retaliated by killing him. Tim is put into a psychiatric institution and Kaylie is taken to a foster home. Kaylie screams to Tim asking him to remember to keep the promise of killing the mirror. As he’s driven away, at the window, he sees both his dead parents staring at him.

After 11 Years, The Present Day

11 years go by. Tim completes his treatment. The movie begins with a dream sequence where young Tim and Kaylie are at gunpoint and the shooter is Tim. We aren’t shown what the treatment has been like but this seems to be a defining moment to release Tim from his custody. Tim believes, or wants to believe, that what he saw as a kid was merely his young brain creating an elaborate ghost story to cope with the events of his parents’ murders. Kaylie is left all alone in the foster home. She grows old there and their house is now transferred to her. She lives with her fiancee in a different house. In the time that has passed, she has been researching on the mirror to find out that weird and ghastly things have happened to the owners of this mirror. She locates the mirror via the auction company she works in and gets it taken to the old house. There is a short moment where the mirror plays tricks with Kaylie at the auction house (with the blanket-clad disappearing ghoul, the mirror clearly likes to mess around). When Tim comes out Kaylee receives him. She reminds him of their promise to kill the mirror.

Kaylee’s Preparation

In the night Kaylie has a nightmare of her father choking her, she wakes up screaming. Next day, she has Tim come over to the old house where the mirror is back, and Kaylie has set up cameras, screens, plants, food, water and a trip mechanism connected to a 20-pound Danforth anchor. Kaylie thinks she needs to ensure that in case they die, the trip mechanism will cause the mirror to be shattered. She has also asked her fiancee to call on the hour to check on her. If he doesn’t get a response he is to call the police. She begins recording and goes through a list of people who have owned the mirror and their fates. Tim doesn’t believe her because he truly feels that their experiences were just imagination. They argue about their dog and how it perished. Tim says that their dad was a homicidal maniac and killed their mother and that he was having an affair. Kaylie disagrees because their mother had lost her mind when she died. Tim releases Kaylie’s sacrificial dog.

It Begins … Again

For the remainder of the film, the mirror essentially toys around with the two of their minds, makes them run around like children and annihilates them . Kaylie first sees that the cameras have gotten into a position facing each other. When they play the recorded footage, they see that the two of them move the cameras but can’t remember doing it. This would have been an ideal time to bail on the plan and run out, but they don’t. They can’t. They don’t know it yet, but they are already screwed. Tim leaves the house to make a call but can’t get a network. He is suddenly back in the house. He only imagines exiting. They go back in to arrange the cameras. Tim is seeing an image on the screen completely different from what’s going on. This scene is enough to say that, you can’t believe the electronics if your mind is being played around with. Kaylie gets a call from her fiancee checking on her, looks like there is no way to know it’s him. The plants begin to rot as well.

An Apple A Day

Slowly the lights start going out. Tim starts seeing flashes of the past. As Kaylie is fixing bulbs, she picks up an apple and bites into it, only to think she’s bitten into a bulb and is bleeding. Soon she snaps back and sees that it’s indeed the apple. Both their minds are beginning to wander.

Memories Of The Past

Both of them begin to start seeing the past play out in front of them. The event of their mom becoming crazy, the doctor calls, etc. Tim finds himself upstairs and Kaylie is standing in front of the mirror, daydreaming. Just before the timer trips she snaps back and resets it. She begins getting frustrated and breaks a vase with a dead plant in it. Tim sees his younger self who goes down to ask his dad to fix the electricity issue and sees Marisol. The house loses electricity and Kaylie begins to turn on the battery operated lamps. Upstairs, she sees a chain and broken plates and tells herself that it’s not real. As she gets back down, she sees more pieces of a broken plate. When she looks through her phone, the floor is clear. Suddenly dead Marie appears and Kaylie stabs her with a piece of the plate she’s holding. Soon she sees that it’s her fiancee she has stabbed. The piece in her hand is not from a plate but from the vase. Now there is a 50-50 chance that the fiancee is actually in the house and dead. It could be that he’s tried reaching Kaylie, didn’t get through and shows up at the house. But it might be good to assume that all that is happening in the house are mirages. The mirror is projecting visions in their minds to get them to do things.

The 911 Call

The two of them run out and Tim calls 911. A point to note here is that this call goes through (the cops show up, in the end, saying Tim made the call). The mirror has already planned their fates, it’s just executing it . Tim now says that they just have to wait till the trip goes off and the mirror is shattered. It’s not that simple. The lights come back on and they see their doppelgangers inside the room standing in front of the mirror. The two are confused now if what they’re “seeing” from the outside is an illusion or them “being” outside is the illusion. Tim places another call to 911. He hears the old voice asking their father to call the doctor. Kaylie stomps on the phone. The two are convinced that a call never went through and go back into the house. They see their doubles at the mirror with Marisol walking up to them talking in their dad’s voice.

Reliving The Nightmare

Kaylie sees that Tim is now a kid again and running up in fear. She remembers running up with him in the past for similar events. They are back up in the room and haunted by their ghastly mom. Tim realizes that this is just a replay of older events. He goes out and sees his dad with a gun and fires at him. Kaylie, like in the past, is now outside and runs indoors when she hears the gun. She sees her dead fiancee by the mirror. She sees Tim hiding as before and she goes through the events of her mom choking her and dad shooting her mother all over again. Tim sees the events of him finally shooting his dad. He imagines being haunted by ghouls, this is not a memory, this is an illusion currently being projected to instill enough fear in him. Tim wakes up sitting alone by the mirror in the present day, scared.

Oculus Movie Ending Explained. Mirror Wins. Flawless Victory. Fatality!

Tim thinks he is alone in the room. He can’t see Kaylie. She is in the room too. The illusion being projected in her head is that of her younger-self looking into the mirror to see her mom who’s calling out. Young Kaylie goes to the mirror and hugs her mom. In reality, the present day Kaylie is standing in front of the mirror, hugging it. Tim is not seeing this. In his fear, he sees an opportunity to destroy the mirror. He runs to the timer and turns it to zero. The anchor drops and gets Kaylie at the back of her neck. She dies. Tim sees Kaylie only after the anchor hits her.

All Is Lost

The cops arrive and see the footage. Tim recollects all the events as they happened 11 years back. It’s happening again. This time Kaylie is dead. They shouldn’t have messed with that mirror. Tim is arrested as the cops only see Tim killing Kaylie in the recordings. As Tim is driven away, he remembers his promise to his sister which he’s not been able to keep. At the window, this time, he sees his dead parents and now Kaylie too staring at him as the film comes to an end.

Oculus Plot Explanation: Psychological Thriller

Remember we talked earlier about two approaches to this film. This one is seeing all of the events as simply illusions of a deranged family. It will be short and not a lot of fun, which is why it’s at the end of the article. Consider this, the mirror is not evil. Alan is a crazy person. He locks up and tortures Marie who, as a result, loses her mind. Alan eventually shoots and kills Marie. The kids are young and create an elaborate ghost story to deal with this. In this version, their dog just falls sick and dies during one of the trips to the veterinarian (this scene exists in the film too). Years later, the kids too become looney and end up being wrapped up in their own illusions. Tim kills Kaylie because of this. No ghosts, no evil mirror. Just a family with looney genes. The End.

Other Interesting Films

Buster’s Mal Heart Explained (What Did It All Mean?)

Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam Explained: What really happened?

Anatomy Of A Fall Ending Explained: Who did it?

Eileen: Differences Between The Book And Movie

Eileen Movie Ending Explained (Was Rebecca Real?)

Identity Movie Explained: What Really Happened?

Vivarium Explained (2019 Movie Vivarium Meaning)

Nuit Blanche / Sleepless Night (2011) : Movie Plot Explained

Haunter Explained (Movie Plot And Ending)

The Visit Explained (Plot And Ending)

Barry is a technologist who helps start-ups build successful products. His love for movies and production has led him to write his well-received film explanation and analysis articles to help everyone appreciate the films better. He’s regularly available for a chat conversation on his website and consults on storyboarding from time to time. Click to browse all his film articles

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

A recently released inmate from a mental asylum learns from his sister that the murders he was convicted of committing were actually orchestrated by a supernatural entity, the Lasser Glass m... Read all A recently released inmate from a mental asylum learns from his sister that the murders he was convicted of committing were actually orchestrated by a supernatural entity, the Lasser Glass mirror. A recently released inmate from a mental asylum learns from his sister that the murders he was convicted of committing were actually orchestrated by a supernatural entity, the Lasser Glass mirror.

• Mike Flanagan
• Jeff Howard
• Jeff Seidman
• Karen Gillan
• Brenton Thwaites
• Katee Sackhoff
• 558 User reviews
• 368 Critic reviews
• 61 Metascore
• 3 wins & 17 nominations

• Kaylie Russell

• Tim Russell

• Marie Russell

• Alan Russell

• Young Kaylie

• (as Garrett Ryan Ewald)

• Michael Dumont

• Dr. Shawn Graham

• Marisol Chavez
• St. Aidan Security Guard

• Mark (Supervisor)

• Phone Store Clerk

• (as Brett Luciana Murray)

• Skype Worker
• (as Elisa Victoria)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Had director Mike Flanagan agreed to film "Oculus" in the "found footage" genre (like Paranormal Activity (2007) ), a number of studios would have backed it as early as 2006. However, Flanagan refused.
• Goofs When Kaylie starts recording her video, she says the time is 4:15PM. Two minutes later when Michael calls her, she says "Could you try and call on the hour? It's about seven past."

Alan Russell : I've met my demons and they are many. I've seen the devil, and he is me.

• Connections Featured in Nostalgia Critic: Top 11 New Halloween Classics (2014)
• Soundtracks Oculus (Remix) Mixed by Paul Oakenfold Additional Production and Engineered by Hank Kalleen

User reviews 558

• hugorocksmy
• May 1, 2014
• How long is Oculus? Powered by Alexa
• What is "Oculus" about?
• Is "Oculus" based on a book?
• Where did the mirror come from?
• April 11, 2014 (United States)
• United States
• Official Blog
• Official Facebook
• Mobile, Alabama, USA
• Intrepid Pictures
• MICA Entertainment
• WWE Studios
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $5,000,000 (estimated)
• $27,695,246
• $12,005,402
• Apr 13, 2014
• $44,459,951

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 44 minutes

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• See more gaps
• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Recently viewed