Oculus

Kaylie and Tim Russell (Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaites) lost their mom, dad, family dog and a bunch of houseplants in a strange incident that involved a mirror in their dad’s office. Their dad (Rory Cochrane) had started his own company at home, and was working out of the office most of the time. His behavior got increasingly strange, much like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and much to the dismay of his wife, Marie (Katee Sackhoff). The film starts off years after the deaths, with Tim is leaving a mental health facility and Kaylie hatching a plan to “Kill the mirror!” that was in their dad’s office and seemed to have evil powers. Tim killed their suddenly insane dad (resulting in his hospital stay), and Kaylie is determined to prove that both Tim’s actions, and their dad’s strange behavior, were the results of the mischievous mirror, mirror on the wall. While we do see strange reflections in the mirror, ghostly apparitions with white eyes walking around the house and people behaving strangely, it’s never really apparent why all of this is happening. Kaylie’s research reveals that the mirror has been sucking up souls for centuries, but how and why, well, who knows? Director and co-writer Mike Flanagan uses a lot of flashbacks to show us what happened to the Russell family, and it’s all quite disorientating and unnecessary. Gillan and Thwaites are terrible performers, and the movie, although containing a creepy scare or two, is a tedious affair.