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Review

Oculus

3 out of 5 stars
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Time Out says

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the deadest of them all? That’s the question facing brother and sister Kaylie (Karen Gillan) and Tim (Brenton Thwaites) in this well-made if featherweight American horror. The pair reunite after a decade to take care of some unfinished, supernatural business and face a pretty cool antagonist: an antique mirror known as the Lasser Glass, which has a habit of making its owners kill themselves and others.

The mirror’s earlier victims were Kaylie and Tim’s parents, whom we see in flashbacks alongside the siblings’ present-day attempts to conquer this evil piece of furniture. Director Mike Flanagan has lots of fun with the crisscrossing timelines. Glowing-eyed ghosts flit menacingly, and Kaylie has a memorably cringeworthy moment involving a broken lightbulb that she mistakes for an apple. Yet the family upset that the film tries to plumb for emotional effect never turns into anything meaningful. For all its bump-in-the-night delights, ‘Oculus’ is little more than a well-tooled creepshow.

Release Details

  • Rated:15
  • Release date:Friday 13 June 2014
  • Duration:104 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Mike Flanagan
  • Screenwriter:Mike Flanagan, Jeff Howard
  • Cast:
    • Karen Gillan
    • Katee Sackhoff
    • Brenton Thwaites
    • Rory Cochrane
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