Another 31 Days, Another 31 Screams: Day 22 (Oculus)

In this scene, Clara is cleverly disgused as Karen Gillan.

A horror movie about a haunted mirror? AND it's got a former Doctor Who companion as one of the leads? How the hell can I NOT do this one? Yes, the time has finally come. I get to apply all that weird mirroring shit I made myself infamous for during the Peter Capaldi era to a spooky movie all about it. The former Doctor Who companion is not the one I applied all of this to originally, but Karen Gillan is pretty great all the same. So, too, is the movie! I went into this not knowing quite what to expect, and it's real good I did that. Aside from a general theme of mirroring and a bunch of other things, this movie is a proper mindfuck of surreality. By around the midpoint you start to doubt what you're seeing. Past it you definitely doubt what you're seeing. Near the end, you wonder if any of what you saw was "real" to begin with. There's a Stephen King adaptation I've not covered for these yet; 1408, starring John Cusack. I only saw that movie once when it came out, but Oculus reminded me of it. Mostly because 1408, like Oculus, has the slow but steady breakdown of reality to make you doubt what you're seeing. I'm not sure what I saw for the last 100 minutes but let's try and chart it. Key word, try.


Okay, so I may or may not use the word mirror like 85 times in this. This is my playground now. Welcome to prime time, kids. So, how the hell does a haunted mirror kill you? Fucking with your head and perceptions, basically. The idea here is neat enough; two kids slowly watch their parents go crazy and their dad murder their mom, and 10 years later they come back to the house, haunted mirror in tow, because Karen Gillan's character wants to prove that the mirror is haunted. Simple setup, and the way they play the movie out is in parallel timeline, cutting back and forth between past and present. Of course, the shots mirror each other as we transition, but then... things start getting messy. The mirror's influence is felt, both in past and present, and things begin to blur. In a mad way, time starts to mirror itself. Things from the present showing up in the past, images from the past showing up in the present. In either time setting, shit begins going wrong in weird ways and showing fucked-up things that may or may not happen. The tension's high in this one, and there are only a few shots that use pain and blood as the primary scares. Everything's about perception... and how fitting, given that the main haunt of the movie is a thing that reflects images back at you. The movie itself is an unreliable narrator as things break down, showing you one thing and then revealing a totally different thing that happened.


Of course, the entire events are mirrors of each other. A woman convinced that something's going on with the mirror. A man who thinks that things are fine, but is himself being fucked up by the mirror. I'll be honest with you. I thought I had more playground to roll with, but I don't. There's only so many ways I can say that this movie toys with your perceptions and alters reality for 100 minutes, but it does. I can't say I'm entirely satisfied with how it ends, but I AM satisfied with just how much the ending mirrors itself, showing the grim finale of both past and present. That mirror is one tricky bastard, a cursed object all on its own... and if you keep questioning what's real and what's not in this one, you'll hurt your head. If you like being confused and a healthy dose of surreality, and don't mind mirror bullshit, go fire this one up. As for me... well, I'll reflect on what to do next. HEH! HEH! HEH!