Oculus (2014) Horror Supernatural

Oculus (2014) - SERIOUS SPOILERS IN THIS ENTRY! At twelve dollar a film I am often disappointed when I go to the theater. It could be picking the wrong films plays a part or it could be that most films are just mediocre. Most times though there sitting in the dark there is a sinking feeling that the film on the screen will be in a discount bin or queue in six months. It may be that theaters are so oriented towards big budget films that we just don't see the creative independent films that blow our minds. Small venue viewing like the ones held at the Somerville Theater by All things Horror tend to be where I am seeing the cool stuff. The full priced theater tends to just leave me a bit empty an so it is always with reluctance that this is where I want to see a movie. An exception had to be made this week for Oculus by Mike Flanagan. ( I probably should have gone to see the Conjuring in theaters but never did. So with a bit of hope that my pattern would be broken my daughter and I ponied up our cache and headed in to see Oculus.
Flanagan got a recommendation from this blog for his cool monster flick Absentia (2011) so I was really looking forward to see what he could do with a bigger budget. I thought at that time that this was a very creative film maker with potential and really the criticism I had for that first film was he just did not have the funds to make it as good as it could have been. This is not a problem with Oculus. I wanted to also see and write about this film before I started hearing and seeing reviews for it. I am sure I will probably pick up on many of the same things any reviewers will but I wanted to do this review clean before getting any ideas from anywhere else.
  Oculus is a very cleverly written film and the editing is even more clever. Shifting between the past and the present in such a fluid way it tells two tales at once centering around an antique mirror. Whether that mirror is haunted or not I will leave for later, the characters think it is and that is what matters for the plot. The film tells the story of sibling Kaylie and Tim Russell in the past and in the present. In the past we see the 12 year old Kaylie (Annalise Basso) and 10 year old Tim (Garrett Ryan) as they move into a new house with their parents Marie (Katee Sackoff) and Alan (Rory Cochrane). Then things go horrible wrong in the house and Alan kills Marie and when going after the kids is killed by young Tim.
  In the present Tim (Brenton Thwaites) is released from mental health treatment at the age of 21 and is met by his sister Kaylie (Karen Gillan). She over the years in foster care has grown into an obsessed young woman. Obsessed with the mirror she believes is the root of the past horrors. Having hunted it down and researched its history she is convinced it feeds on life. Killing plants around it, making pets vanish, and taking over the will of people around it to kill those they love. She has a plan to document and then destroy the mirror. Her brother having recognized through therapy all the ways the past could be misremembered is reluctant to help but family bonds are strong and soon the two are back in the house their parents died in and are playing out a plan.
  The writing in this film is very smart and I appreciated it. The scenes in the past are viewed from the point of view of the children. Traumatized by arguing parents who grow increasingly more dysfunctional we get to feel their pain as thing spiral out of control. Kaylie the older of the two sees a supernatural entity in the mirror in the fathers office and feels it is influencing him towards violence. Really the clever part is whether there is or isn't anything other than fucked up parents and psychologically damaged children. Sure we see the other worldly beings as the audience but it is completely through the memories of the siblings. Having worked in mental health for many years it seems possible that it is Kaylie who is misremembering the past and that the trauma of the murders has created a psychotic break for her. This would explain her needs to deal with the mirror. Tim is a voice of reason trying to explain how things could have gotten confused but she is so determined that he seems to lose this argument. She is convince that therapy has brainwashed him into explaining all the magic away from what happened. He being influenced by her in the past easily falls under her spell again in adulthood. Playing with the line between real and unreal is such a strength of this film. The absolutely complicated system that Kaylie comes up with to fool the mirror and hopefully destroy it could be viewed as a bit crazy but she is so convincing in her evidence that we and the brother must at least hope for her sake that it has credence.
  If there is a weakness in the film it is the blatant setup for a sequel but considering how well done this film is I can only hope that the studio throws a bunch more money at Flanagan and he gets to do even more good work. This film is very much recommended by this blog. Go see it in theaters and hope for more.

Absentia (2011) Horror Monster

Absentia (2011) - This character driven film is less a horror film than a meditation on grief and closure. Sure at the end it is a horror flick in that just when the main character Tricia (Courtney Bell) starts to move on her past life comes stumbling back to haunt her. Early in the film it Tricia with the company of her little sister Callie (Katie Parker) works toward filing papers to have her husband Daniel (Morgan Peter Brown) declared dead by absentia as he has been missing for 7 years. These actions bring up very difficult feelings for the pregnant Tricia. Pregnant?, you say. Yes it appears our miss Trish has already started moving on. Her love interest and father of her child is Det. Mallory (Dave Levine) who has been working the case for several years. It is part of a well put together set of characters who are not perfect and it plays well in the film. Each has a set of issues that are honest, Tricia having hallucinations of her lost husband as she prepares to seek the death certificate. Mallory who has the awkward professional / personal relationship with her. Callie who is there to help her sister but is struggling to deal with a drug addiction.
Callie I guess is a protagonist in she has some strange experiences in a tunnel that runs from the neighborhood to a park on the other side. Early on she encounters a strange man in the tunnel who wants her to help him. Looking like a vagrant she is slow to react but her heart is bigger than that and she brings him food in exchange for some trinkets. She is warned by a local passer by that she should not trade with "it". Ominous, but not the only strange thing that is going on in the area. There have been a bunch of strange break-ins where the person doing it leaves obvious things of value for trinkets. Strange also are the pets in the neighborhood disappearing at an alarming rate. This all sets up a nice dynamic of having mystery while these full characters struggle with there inner demons.
When the turn comes it is sort of expected but still enjoyable. Things are thrown for a loop and all bets are off for these people. Then the film moves from character driven drama to solid enough horror flick. Unfortunately the explanation comes in a trope that may be overused in Hollywood. Callie searches the internet and then there is suddenly so much clarity for her. Tricia plays the skeptic to make sure we the audience are forced to be convinced. There is a history in this area of people vanishing and Callie "traded with it". Still she has only missing persons information. How is it that police have worked these cases for years without ever seeing the patterns that Callie sees. Is it that in her drug addled mind she is making connections that aren't there? All this combines for a bit of a monster movie without really ever seeing the monster. The film makers did do a nice job creating the idea of the monster, shot for very little money they worked movie magic with glimpses and shadow and things moving behind curtains.
The second turn in the film does the opposite of what we would want in a script. Instead of building off the first turn we get a bit of excitement and then a return to the quiet drama of the first half of the film. The music is not dynamic enough with a very one note tone that never lets tension build but instead holds it at a low level. When the climax begins in what should be pulse racing thrills instead we get a muted flashback of what Callie saw happening in the house. Oh and there is this stupid thing where on two occasions characters are asked to file missing person reports. In both cases it is common knowledge that it is way too soon to do so; so each case is off putting. The climax is also less than fulfilling with a confrontation that is never seen. A trade that is never seen and closure that never comes. You are left guessing if her ploy works or not.
This film is a testament to what can be done with limited resources it is not brilliant but it is decent. So kudos for Mike Flanagan for using Kickstarter to get his project done, and to his friends the actors who pulled off honest portrayals. I can recommend this film as one I liked but wished for more. More? well from the pacing and the music and if ever they could have had more money, and more of the monster.
Rating (5.1) 5.0 and up are recommended, some are just more recommended than others.