Movie Review for OCULUS with Karen Gillan and Katee Sackhoff
If you like watching horror movies, then this weekend you'll have to go see the movie Oculus. I was looking forward to seeing this movie, not only because it was a horror film but because it starred Doctor Who's Karen Gillan and Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff, and I'm a big fan of both actresses! Although I thought the movie was entertaining, it did have its problems.
It took awhile for the film to build up some momentum. At first it felt like an episode of the CW series Supernatural, but about 30 minutes in things started to pick up and the movie got really good. Horror films are kind of my thing, and Oculus turned out to be a pretty disturbing film. Regardless of its faults I still had a great time watching it. It was a fun horror ride with a few cool twists and turns, some of which were predicable, but that's ok. It didn't take away from the movie going experience.
The story follows a woman (Gillan) who enlists the help of her brother (Brendon Thwaites) to prove that he is innocent of a family murder by proving that the crime was actually committed by a supernatural phenomenon. Through the course of the film we get flashbacks of what happened when they were kids, and how the family started to fall apart. One of my favorite aspects of the film is the third act when the past and the present start to crossover with each other. It was a really cool concept.
The whole story revolves around an antique mirror that apparently can't be broken, but I would have loved to actually see them try to break it. There were a few holes like that in the movie. When you see it for yourself you'll know what I'm talking about, but I don't want to spoil some of the surprises. There were just ways they could have broken that mirror that they didn't even try.
There's an evil that resides in the mirror, and even though the intent of Gillan's character was to destroy the evil, she never had a clear objective on how she was going to pull it off other than eating food, hydrating, and filming everything. Not knowing how she planned to kill this thing was the one thing that left me hanging. There were a few things she anticipated and prepared for, but in the end it really didn't matter because so much happened that she didn't anticipate.
All of the actors did a fantastic job in their roles, but the best acting in the film came from the two actors that played younger versions of Gillan and Thwaites' characters, Annalise Basso and Gerrett Ryan. They were awesome. I enjoyed every scene that they were in because of the intensity that they put into their roles.
Even though there were some things that could have been handled better when telling this story, as I said before, I thought the movie was entertaining, and it had some great, creepy and sinister moments that horror movie fans will appreciate.
If horror movies are your thing and you enjoy the adrenaline rush they give you, then I'm pretty sure that this movie that will satisfy your craving for fear.