OCULUS (2013)

[GRWelsh]

I just saw this recently on Netflix, not sure why I missed it when it first came around. It was pretty good, especially for the first two thirds. As with a lot of horror movies, the build up is better than the finale, but I'd still recommend it as a decent horror flick. It's about a mirror some people think is haunted, and I don't want to say more in case you guys haven't seen it.

I'm currently watching HUSH (2016), another horror movie by the same director, Mike Flanagan. It is also pretty good, I would describe it as stripped down basic horror. It does feel like I've seen it before. It's kind of like a variation on the home invasion horror theme of that movie with Audrey Hepburn playing the blind woman, "Wait Until Dark," but in this case the woman is deaf and it is more of a one on one survival ordeal. I'm just waiting for the boyfriend to show up unexpectedly and get killed.

Flanagan is also the director for the upcoming movie version of DOCTOR SLEEP.

[geneweigel]

Yeah, I saw both of those. They seemed alright but I usually watch a high volume of horror anyway. Not that I particularly seek out horror but my wife likes to watch movies and thats the common ground. Otherwise she wants to watch biopics and chick flicks and straight up reality TV and/or murder case Dateline shit. RUN FOR THE HORROR!!!!

[GRWelsh]

Horror might be my favorite movie genre, but only when it is well done and that is rare. So there is always this sense of searching for the Holy Grail.

OCULUS isn't top tier, but it is above average. It uses one of my favorite themes with the supernatural: ambiguity. Too many horror movies go over the top with the supernatural, especially in the third act, and that's usually when it find it hard to relate to. In OCULUS there is this ambiguity over whether something really supernatural is happening, or it is all coincidence, or being imagined, and/or part of mental illness and childhood trauma. That's a great way to treat it. I think supernatural works best with that ambiguity or creepiness to it, like you know you're the only one in the house and you hear somebody moving around or glimpse someone out of the corner of your eye, that sort of thing.