Catch-Up Review: Color Out of Space (No Spoilers)

Color Out of Space is a small horror movie that was first shown at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, but it was given a limited theatrical release in January of this year.  It's based on a short story by H. P. Lovecraft called "The Colour Out of Space," and it's a good mix of faithful adaptation and modern updating.  It tells the same basic story that Lovecraft wrote almost 100 years ago, but it's set in the present day rather than a century ago.

The plot is pretty simple.  One day, a meteorite crashes in a farm owned by the Gardner family, and their life soon takes a very sharp turn for the worse.  The meteorite quickly disappears, but in its wake it leaves the titular monster: the color out of space.  If you've never read the story or seen the movie, it's tough to describe just what this thing is, but I'll try my best.  There's no tangible monster in this movie; instead, it's exactly what it sounds like.  It's literally just a color.  You see a purplish/pinkish color throughout the film, sometimes in the things it affects and sometimes in the lighting of the scenes, and every time you do, you know something bad either will happen or already has.  It affects the Gardners themselves by eating away at their minds and bodies, and it messes up their plants, animals, and even their technology like phones and cars.

On the surface, that may seem kind of silly.  Why would you want to watch a movie about an evil color?  I understand why you might be skeptical, but it's actually way better than it sounds.  In particular, this film captures arguably the best thing about H. P. Lovecraft's fiction: the fear of the unknown.  Lovecraft understood that what you don't know is scarier than what you do know.  If we can pin something down and explain it, then we can limit it.  But if we can't explain it, if we don't know what its limits are, then it can be just about anything our minds can come up with, and nothing can scare us like our own imaginations.  In fact, it can be even worse than that.  We know that reality isn't bound by our limited intellects, so an unexplained monster might very well be beyond what we can imagine or even comprehend.  It can literally be anything, so there's no limit to how scary it might really be.  Lovecraft understood this, so he always gave his readers just enough information to make his stories coherent and then left the rest to their imaginations. 

And Color Out of Space captures that characteristic Lovecraftian mystery flawlessly.  Like Lovecraft, director Richard Stanley also understands that nothing he can show you on-screen will be as scary as what you can imagine in your own head, so he wisely chooses not to explain what the color actually is, where it came from, or how exactly it does what it does.  The movie simply shows you what happens, and then it lets your brain stew in its own thoughts about what the color might be, giving your imagination free rein to scare you like nothing else can.

Along similar lines, this film also makes us realize how small and insignificant we really are in the grand scheme of things.  We like to think we're the pinnacle of the natural world, the big boys at the top of the cosmic food chain, but this movie lays bare the truth: we're just weak and feeble creatures living on a tiny speck of dust in the great vastness of space.  The color rips through the Gardners without even breaking a sweat, showing us that there are things out there that are way stronger than we could ever hope to be.  Some of them are already here on earth (like certain diseases and natural disasters), and others might very well lie in outer space, beyond the reaches of our rockets and telescopes.  That's a sobering realization, and it should kindle in us a sense of humility and wonder at the incredible power of the world around us.

In particular, this film highlights a deadly enemy we face all too often here on earth.  It mentions cancer a few times, and one character even likens the smell of the meteorite to the smell of a cancer ward, making it clear to observant viewers that the movie is supposed to be a metaphor for that terrible disease.  Cancer eats away at people just like the color in this movie, and all too often the only thing we can do is watch as the people we love deteriorate day by day.

In fact, Richard Stanley used to read H. P. Lovecraft stories to his mother as she was dying from cancer, so this movie is like a personal message from the director himself that he's gone through the same things many of us have.  It's like he's telling us that we're not the only ones who've ever felt that way, that we're not the only ones who've ever gone through that agony, and there's a certain comfort in that.  It's comforting to know that we're not alone in our pain.  If other people have suffered through it and have been able to keep on living their lives, so can we.

So, if you're a fan of horror, I highly recommend Color Out of Space.  It's not the best horror movie of the year (so far that's The Invisible Man), but it's still really good.  It will tap into some of our species' deepest, darkest fears as well as some of the greatest suffering we can ever experience.  It will remind you of humanity's true place in the universe, and it will incite in you a sense of wonder at what may be out there, patiently waiting for the day when it can finally show us just how awesome (either in a good way or a bad way) it truly is.

New Movie Review: Relic (No Spoilers)

Relic is a godsend.  While our country languishes in a seemingly never-ending pandemic with no new theatrical releases in sight (I think the big movies scheduled for August will be pushed back even further), we just got a top-tier horror movie released straight into the comfort of our own homes.  It's an Australian horror-drama that originally premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January and was released to the general public this month.  It came out in drive-ins on July 3 and VOD (video on demand, including Amazon, Vudu, and cable providers) on July 10.

This movie centers on an elderly dementia patient named Edna who goes missing.  Her daughter Kay and granddaughter Sam go to her house to look for her, and as soon as they arrive, weird things start to happen, making you think that there might be more going on than just a bad case of dementia.  Soon afterwards, Edna just shows up again in her house, but she refuses to say anything about where she was.  Weird things continue happening, and you're not entirely sure if the problem is just her dementia, if it's supernatural, or if it's a mix of the two.

I was really excited to see this movie for two reasons.  For one, it got great reviews out of Sundance, and I always look forward to good new horror movies.  Secondly, I also had a much more personal interest in it.  My grandmother died from Alzheimer's (which is the most common cause of dementia) several years ago, and I was interested to see how the movie would depict this terrible disease.  Happily, I can say that Relic met and exceeded my expectations on both fronts.

By far its biggest strength is its treatment of dementia.  For one, it does an amazing job of portraying the progression of the disease, and this really resonated with me because the events of this movie line up very well with my own experiences.  When Edna first shows up, she alternates between lucidity and forgetfulness.  She's in her right mind most of the time, but she has bouts of forgetfulness every now and again.  Then, as the disease progresses, she becomes a very different person than the one Kay and Sam have known all their lives, to the point where her personality is pretty much unrecognizable.

Even more than its depiction of the disease itself, though, I really loved the film's message about how we should treat our loved ones who suffer from it, and this comes through with particular poignancy in the very last scene (which I won't spoil; I promise).  See, it's not just your typical horror ending where either the monster or the victim finally comes out on top.  This movie's ending is a bit more complicated than that.  Kay and Sam show that they love their elderly matriarch no matter what she's become, and again, for someone who's gone through a similar experience, it's a powerful reminder of the humanity of dementia patients.  My family and I never stopped loving my grandmother no matter how much her Alzheimer's progressed, so I really appreciated seeing a similar display of love from these characters.

On top of all that, Relic also manages to integrate the disease into its horror in a brilliant and seamless way.  This point is tough to explain without spoiling it, so I'll just say this: the movie doesn't just use dementia as an excuse to show off a cool monster.  Instead, it's genuinely at the heart of all the bad things that happen in the film, and without it, there would be no horror at all.  In that sense, it's a lot like The Babadook (which coincidentally also happens to be from Australia), but I think this one does it even better.

And speaking of the movie's horror elements, Relic eschews the gore and jump scares that most non-fans associate with horror and instead relies on more subtle methods.  Everything from the set designs to the cinematography to the acting comes together perfectly to create a creepy, unsettling atmosphere that permeates the entire film and makes you constantly question whether Edna's dementia is really just all in her head.  The horror in this movie is the kind that gets under your skin and lets your imagination do the heavy lifting, so while it won't terrify you the way something like Paranormal Activity will, it's just as effective in its own way.

I have to warn you, though, this movie is a slow burn, so it won't be for everyone.  But for people who can appreciate that kind of horror, even the slow parts are creepy and mysterious enough to hold you over until the big finale.  Then, when that finale comes, it doesn't disappoint.  Again, I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say this: it takes the theme of dementia and magnifies it in a very creative way, giving you a glimpse of what it must be like to have this terrible disease.

All in all, Relic is more than just a great horror movie; it's the second best movie (of any genre) I've seen all year.  Sure, that's not saying much in 2020, but much like I felt about The Invisible Man, I'm confident that this would be one of my favorites even if it were a normal, non-pandemic year.  It's just that good, so if you like slow burn stories that rely on a creepy atmosphere and a well-crafted mystery, you should definitely check this one out.  You will not be disappointed.

A Review of Netflix's New Show Ju-On: Origins

Ju-On: Origins is a new horror show from Netflix that came out last Friday (July 3).  It's a prequel to the popular Japanese film franchise Ju-On, which most people in America know from The Grudge, the stateside remake of Ju-On: The Grudge.  The show tells the story of a house where bad things constantly happen to the people who so much as step foot in it.  Over a series of several decades, tragedy after tragedy occurs there, and this string of incredible evil is definitely more than just a coincidence.

I was looking forward to this show quite a bit, and while I wasn't entirely disappointed, it ended up being a mixed bag for me.  I did like it, but just barely.  On the one hand, the horror elements are really good.  For example, it has some very creepy, atmospheric moments, and the ghosts in it are head and shoulders above anything you see in Ju-On: The Grudge.  They look like they've been through hell, and they're ready to take you there too.

More importantly, this show manages to portray the depths of human depravity in a way that's both gut-wrenching and eerily beautiful.  Not that evil is ever beautiful in itself, but there's something to be said for capturing genuine truths about the human condition, even if it's the darker truths that we often try to set aside and ignore.  Good horror unmasks evil and shows it for what it really is, and this show does an excellent job of that.  It portrays the darker side of human nature as truly evil, never glorifying it or making it seem fun, and there's a genuine beauty in that.

As good as those horror elements are, though, the show really falters on the narrative side.  The story limps along from episode to episode, being barely intelligible enough to justify its existence.  In particular, I would say it has two main problems.  For one, the first few episodes are often confusing, as they jump back and forth between a few different characters and their storylines.  The second half of the series is more coherent, with the various narrative threads slowly coming together in a cohesive way, but the end doesn't make up for all the confusion you have to endure to get there.

Secondly, the plot feels really pointless.  It's basically just a string of horrifically evil acts and the events that led up to them, and then it ends.  There's no real story here other than the mere fact that this house is evil, and even when the different plot threads come together in the end, it still lacks any genuine narrative power.  The closest thing we get to a character arc is a guy who searches for the house and then finds it, and when the credits roll after the final episode, nothing is actually resolved.  It's almost like you the viewer and the characters in the show have to just live with the fact that this house is evil, and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

There is, however, a silver lining to this apparent lack of purpose, one saving grace that makes the narrative just good enough to get by: I think the point of it all is that there is no point.  The way I see it, the purpose of the show is to capture the pointlessness of evil and show that goodness is the only thing that has any real meaning.  Evil, in contrast, is kind of just there with no real rhyme or reason to its existence, and we simply have to learn to live with it in our imperfect world.

At the end of the day, I can't guarantee that you'll love Ju-On: Origins (in fact, you probably won't), and I can't even guarantee that you'll like it, but I can say this about it: it gets evil right, and I think that makes it worth the roughly three hours it takes to get through all six episodes, especially during this dearth of new movies that we're currently suffering through.  Despite all the confusion, the lack of character development, and the narrative impotence, this show portrays evil in a chillingly accurate way, so if you're a horror fan who appreciates art that captures the darker side of humanity and shows it for what it truly is, you should give this one a shot.  You just might like it.

Catch-Up Review: The Invisible Man

I'm just going to come right out and say it.  The Invisible Man is a horror masterpiece, and it cements director/writer Leigh Whannell as one of the best, most exciting filmmakers in the genre today.  It's the best movie of the year so far (granted, that's not saying too much right now, but it still counts for something), and there's a good chance it'll stay that way.

When I first heard about this movie, I was a bit surprised.  While I love the original Invisible Man, and I knew Universal Studios was still trying to find a way to successfully reboot its classic monsters, I wasn't expecting them to reboot this particular one just yet.  But I'm really happy that they did because they found the perfect way to update this classic character and bring him into the 21st century.

This one is about a woman named Cecilia who leaves her abusive boyfriend Adrian in the middle of the night, and she lives in fear of him for two weeks until she finds out that he killed himself.  She thinks she's finally free of the mental and emotional hold he had on her, but she couldn't be more wrong.  Pretty soon, weird things start happening, and at first the movie feels almost like another entry in the Paranormal Activity franchise.  Eventually, Cecilia figures out that Adrian faked his death, found a way to make himself invisible, and is stalking her.  From there, things get more and more intense, as the invisible man makes everyone think Cecilia is going crazy, and he does some pretty terrible things while making it look like she was the culprit.

On the surface, that may sound silly, and in the hands of a lesser director, it probably would be.  But Leigh Whannell handles the story perfectly, milking the concept for all its worth without ever letting it become a self-parody.  He keeps the creepiness and tension high throughout the entire movie, as you never know where the invisible man might be.  He can strike at any time, and the movie hammers this home with an ingenious use of camera angles.  There are times when you look at Cecilia and her friends from weird angles that let you know you're seeing them through Adrian's unseen eyes, and there are even times when the camera focuses on seemingly empty parts of the room, letting you know that Adrian is there even though you can't see him.

But The Invisible Man isn't just camera tricks and scares.  Leigh Whannell also found a way to make the titular character more culturally relevant than I ever thought he could be.  The movie is clearly a metaphor for abusive relationships, a timeless issue that unfortunately never goes away, but it also hones in on an element of this problem that is uniquely modern.  Nobody believes Cecilia that her supposedly dead boyfriend is actually alive and invisible, and only recently has society come to realize the pain we cause when we dismiss women's claims of abuse.

In typical horror fashion, this movie takes that idea and amplifies it so the point is impossible to miss.  The worst part about Cecilia's ordeal isn't Adrian's mind games; it's the fact that nobody believes her.  Everybody thinks she's losing her grip on reality, and that causes both her friends and her relatives to cut her off and leave her to face her tormentor alone.  I've never experienced that kind of abuse and mistreatment myself, but I imagine that what Cecilia feels in this movie must be exactly what real-life women feel in these kinds of situations.  It's heartbreaking to watch, but it's important that we see it because it gives us a glimpse of just how much pain we cause when we nonchalantly dismiss women's allegations of abuse.

In particular, this metaphorical element works so well because of Elisabeth Moss's performance as Cecilia.  While the acting is good all around, she's the clear standout here, and she makes you believe that she's really going through this psychological torture.  Her performance is phenomenal, allowing you to really feel her pain and get a glimpse of what it's like not just for her character but for all women in similar situations.

As I said before, this movie is a masterpiece, but that doesn't mean it's perfect.  In my opinion, it has two main flaws.  First, some of the events in the movie rely a bit too heavily on "movie logic."  For example, Cecilia figures out what's going on a bit too easily.  While the movie tries its best to make you think this is a reasonable inference on her part, a moment's reflection on the absurdity of the whole idea of an invisible man is enough to make us realize that no matter how well it might fit with what we know of Adrian, it's just too much of a leap to get it right on the first guess.  There are a few other things like that as well, but these are admittedly more nitpicks than genuine problems.

Secondly, and much more importantly, the final scene stumbles quite a bit.  I don't want to spoil anything, but the filmmakers made a big narrative decision that doesn't fit with the rest of the movie.  I see what they were going for thematically, and I appreciate the effort, but in my opinion it just doesn't work.  I can't say anything else without spoiling it, so suffice it to say that this was a pretty big misstep.  But it was the only real misstep of this movie, and since the rest of it is so good, I'm willing to forgive the ending and still consider the movie a masterpiece of the genre.

So if you're a fan of horror but you didn't get a chance to see The Invisible Man when it was in theaters, definitely check it out now that it's available on home video and online rental platforms.  It's one of the best horror films I've seen in years.  Hell, even if you're not a fan of horror, I'd still say you should check it out.  This is one of those movies that can transcend the genre and appeal to people who aren't normally horror fans.  It's just a great movie in general, so unless you're absolutely opposed to anything creepy or suspenseful, you don't want to miss out on this one.

Catch-Up Review: Underwater

I made things a bit difficult for myself by deciding to finally start this blog during a pandemic. One of the things I want to do with it is review new horror movies when they come out, but aside from a few VOD releases, it looks like we won't be getting anything new for a while. Luckily, I was able to see a few good movies before the theaters shut down, so while this dearth of new films continues, I'm going to be doing some catch-up reviews of movies that came out earlier this year.

Our first catch-up review is for Underwater, a movie that came out quietly in January without much fanfare or buzz. Admittedly, when I first heard about this film, I was skeptical. For one, its release month didn't inspire much confidence. January is usually a month when studios dump all their bad movies, so I thought this one would be just another January dump. Secondly, this movie is rated PG-13, and anything other than an R rating is often (but not always) a bad sign for horror movies. And finally, the trailers didn't look that impressive. They made it seem like just another generic monster movie.

But when I went to the theater and saw it, I was pleasantly surprised. While Underwater isn't a great film, and it's probably never going to be a beloved classic, it's a nice little monster movie. It's about a deep-sea drilling station that's destroyed by an earthquake, and the survivors have to find a way to get to safety. The escape pods have already been deployed, so their only hope for survival is to walk more than a mile on the ocean floor to the next station. On the way there, they have to deal with both the pressure of seven miles of water above them (if their suits crack even a little bit, they die instantly) and some mysterious monsters that mankind has never encountered before.

If you think that sounds a bit generic, you're not wrong. It's not the most original premise in the world, and the movie doesn't pretend it is. However, it's executed really well, and that makes up for the lack of originality. From the very first minute, the characters are under constant pressure (no pun intended) to survive in tense and very dangerous conditions. Even in moments of levity or relative safety, there's always a chance that things might go south in an instant and kill them all, and that unrelenting tension is what drives the movie. It keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time, wondering what's going to happen next and what new dangers may be lurking just beyond the range of visibility in the murky waters.

The best part of all this is definitely the monsters, as the film strikes a good balance between showing them on-screen and hinting at their presence in other ways (like strange noises whose source you can't see). You see them enough to satisfy your hunger for monster mayhem, but the movie avoids the mistake of showing them so much that they lose their mystique. The creature designs are also pretty cool, so when they're on-screen, they're a delight to watch.

All that being said, the movie does have its flaws. Since the pressure is on from the very first minute, you don't get to know any of the characters before the action starts. Rather, you get to know them as the movie goes on, and unfortunately, that doesn't work too well. The film spends so much time on tension and suspense that it forgets to give the characters any real substance. It does the absolute bare minimum of character development, and it's just passable enough that it doesn't ruin the movie.

At about an hour and a half, the film is short enough that they could've easily added in an extra fifteen or twenty minutes to flesh these characters out and let us connect with them, and I really wish they had. While the movie does a great job of showing the danger they're in, you don't really care what happens to them. You can appreciate the suspense and enjoy it for what it is, but you don't feel a personal connection to anybody in the movie. Because of that, as good as this film is, it would've been a lot better if they had given the characters more substance. Things like tension, suspense, and danger always work better when you care about the characters, so the filmmakers really missed out on an opportunity to take their movie to the next level. While it's still a good film, its lack of character development keeps it from reaching its full potential and being more than just a fun ride with monsters.

Before we end, I have to make special mention of the last fifteen (or so) minutes. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll just say that something pretty cool happens that makes everything that came before it even better. It made me want to immediately watch it again and see the whole movie through the lens of those last fifteen minutes, and while I didn't find the movie drastically different the second time, I did enjoy it a bit more.

So all in all, if you're a fan of monster movies, I would definitely recommend that you check out Underwater if you didn't see it in theaters. It's not the greatest monster movie ever, and it's not going to win any Oscars or change the course of movie history, but it's a fun little creature feature that does what a film of this kind should do. It has a ton of suspense and tension that will keep your eyes fixed on the screen, and it features some cool monsters that you're going to want to see again after the credits roll.

Director Spotlight: Andre Ovredal

With all the horror movies out there, it can be tough to know which ones are worth watching and which we should just skip, so it helps to know a bit about the people behind the movies. In particular, if we know some good directors, we can seek out their movies without worrying quite as much about wasting our time with them. To help out with that, every so often I’m going to highlight a different director and go over a few of their best movies so you have some recommendations to check out now as well as a new name to keep an eye out for in the future.

For this first director spotlight, let’s look at Andre Ovredal, a Norwegian filmmaker who’s directed some of the best hidden gem horror movies of the past ten years. As I’ve discovered more of his work, he’s become one of my favorite directors working today, and after watching the three movies we’ll look at below, he just might become one of your favorites too.

Trollhunter

Trollhunter was the first Andre Ovredal movie I ever saw. It’s a Norwegian film that came out back in 2010, and it’s about a group of documentarians who discover that trolls really exist and that the government is hiding them from the general public. This is a found footage movie, and even though I’m not always a fan of that style, it really works here. It’s not just a gimmick the filmmakers use to help spice up an otherwise uninspired story; rather, it feels appropriate given the whole idea of secret monsters and a government cover-up.

This movie has two great selling points. First, it has a really cool plot. The documentarians find out about the trolls because they come across a secretive man who kills them for the government, and his story is really interesting. As the movie goes on, you learn what his life as a troll hunter is like, and he details some of the hardships he endures as well as some of the terrible things the government has forced him to do to the trolls. It’s all quite fascinating, and it makes the movie feel much more grounded than you would think a movie about fantasy monsters ever could.

Secondly, we have the trolls themselves. As great as the movie’s human drama is, the trolls are the real stars here. Andre Ovredal has created a cool new monster for us to enjoy, one that we’ve never really seen before. Sure, this isn’t the first troll movie ever made, but I’ve never seen them done quite like this. Movie monsters are usually either supernatural creatures, aliens, or one-off anomalies, but these are different. They’re just animals in this movie, and there are actually multiple species of them with vastly different characteristics (like size, temperament, and even number of heads). That gives the movie a cryptozoology kind of vibe, which you don’t find in most horror movies, and I really like it.

So if you’re a fan of monsters, definitely check out Trollhunter. With this movie, Andre Ovredal created some of the coolest new monsters of the 21st century, and he paired it with a gripping story about a government cover-up and its consequences for both the people on the front lines and the trolls themselves. You don’t want to miss it.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe

The Autopsy of Jane Doe was Andre Ovredal’s first English-language movie, and it’s a hell of an introduction to English-speaking audiences. It takes place almost entirely in a coroner’s office, where the police bring the corpse of an unidentified woman found at a brutal crime scene. The body is examined by a widowed coroner and his son, who’s more or less his apprentice, and at first, the body seems normal enough. However, as they examine it further, they realize that this is no normal corpse. Something terrible happened to it, and soon terrible things also begin happening to them.

The best element of this movie is undoubtedly the mystery surrounding Jane Doe. Who is she, and what happened to her? That’s what the main characters are trying to figure out, and as the autopsy goes on, the case becomes weirder and weirder. It eventually becomes a string of WTF moments, and you’ll find yourself on the edge of your seat wondering just what in the world could have happened to this poor woman.

On top of a great mystery, the movie also has really good characters. In particular, Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch do a great job of playing the coroner and his son. They make their characters really believable and likeable, so you feel their pain over the loss of the coroner’s wife, and you root for them when they begin to experience a hostile supernatural force that they seem powerless to fight against.

In a nutshell, The Autopsy of Jane Doe is so good because it’s smarter than your average supernatural horror movie. It doesn’t rely solely on tired genre tropes or familiar monsters that we know everything about before we even see the movie. Instead, much like he does in Trollhunter, Andre Ovredal presents us with a new kind of monster that we come to know bit by bit as we learn about it along with the main characters, helping us to identify with them and experience their pain and fear as our own.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is obviously based on the children’s book series of the same name, and as such it’s aimed at a younger audience than most horror movies. But don’t let that fool you. While it doesn’t have the violence or brutality that a lot of horror fans look for, it has plenty of legitimate terror to satiate our thirst.

The books it’s based on were anthologies of short stories, but the movie eschews that format and instead tells a single narrative that includes multiple stories from the books. It does this in a really intelligent way, managing to keep the stories intact (as opposed to something like the Goosebumps movies, which basically just takes characters from the books and puts them into a completely different story) while also telling a larger overall narrative.

And when we do see those stories come to life, they’re great. The monsters look fantastic, and the movie takes its PG-13 rating to the absolute limit of scariness and tension. Admittedly, the larger narrative isn’t the greatest, but it’s not bad either. It’s just good enough that with the awesome monsters and scares, the movie actually ends up being pretty good.

All in all, maybe the best thing I can say about this movie is that while it’s definitely a kids’ horror movie, it’s also definitely a kids’ horror movie. In other words, yes, this is gateway horror, and yes, it’s made for younger viewers, but it’s not just a kiddy adventure story with monsters. No, the monsters and scares are legit, and the movie has real consequences. Some seriously bad things happen, and they’re not all undone at the end. Make no mistake about it: this is a real horror movie, and it shows once again that very few can match the monster-making skill of Andre Ovredal.

Hidden Gem Recommendation: Oculus

If you haven’t seen Mike Flanagan’s movie Oculus, you’re missing out. It came out pretty quietly in 2014, and while it made decent money, it never got the buzz it deserved. To this day, most people don’t even know about it, but in my opinion it’s one of the best horror movies of the past decade.

Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical when Oculus came out. While the trailers looked good, I noticed that one of the production companies behind it was WWE Studios, and they’re not exactly known for making great movies. But when I finally got a chance to see it, I was very pleasantly surprised. It ended up being my favorite horror movie of the year, and to this day I love popping it into my blu ray player and returning to the crazy, mind-bending story that Mike Flanagan created.

So what’s this movie about? Basically, it’s about a haunted mirror. I know, that’s a tired concept that we’ve seen a million times before, but this time it’s different. Nothing jumps out from the mirror, and it does way more than just make people see things in it that aren’t really there. Instead, the mirror warps people’s perception of the entire world around them. It hijacks all their senses and makes them see, hear, and feel whatever it wants them to.

More specifically, the movie focuses on Tim and Kaylie, two siblings who get their hands on the mirror years after it tore their family apart when they were kids. Tim was sent to a mental institution after their parents were both killed, and the movie picks up the story right when he gets out and sees his sister for the first time in years. Coincidentally, he’s released just after Kaylie finally tracks down the mirror again, so she plans to destroy it with him.

Shortly after their reunion, they bring the mirror to their childhood home, and once there, they begin to argue about whether or not it’s really haunted. Initially, Tim is skeptical because his years of therapy have convinced him that he and his sister simply made up the supernatural stuff, but Kaylie still believes it. In fact, she has done a lot of research about it, and she knows all about the people who had the mirror before her family and how it affected them and ended up killing them. She explains this all to Tim and relates it to their experiences as children, and he provides alternative explanations that his therapists have suggested to him throughout the years.

All this setup takes some time, but it’s worth it because it whets your appetite and makes you really want to see the mirror in action. After hearing so much about it and what it can do, you want to see it for yourself, and once the horror kicks in, the payoff does not disappoint.

The mirror’s strategy against its old rivals is to disorient them so much that they can no longer tell the difference between reality and fantasy, and it does a great job of that. As you’re watching it, there are things you think are real that turn out to be illusory, and there are things you think are fake that turn out to be real.

The movie also moves seamlessly between the present day and the siblings’ experiences with the mirror as kids, telling both stories simultaneously, and that just adds to the effect. Not only do you never know what is and isn’t real, but you can never settle in and know exactly where you’ll be from minute to minute either. Right when you think you know for sure that the movie will continue in the present day for a little while, it switches back to the past, and vice versa.

All of this back and forth between real, fake, present, and past really messes with your head. The mirror disorients you just as much as it does Tim and Kaylie, drawing you into the story and making you feel their fear, and the effect lingers on even after the movie is over. When I walked out of the theater after seeing it for the first time, I reached into my pocket and just about freaked out when I felt my ticket stub in there. I forgot that I had put it in that pocket, so for a second I thought it was the mirror messing with my perception of reality. Obviously it wasn’t, but that’s how effective this movie is.

Now, as with any great horror movie, Oculus is more than just scares and disorientation. It’s also a really well-told story. The movie is edited in such a way that even though the back and forth between past and present is disorienting, the two timelines still come across quite clearly. By the time the movie is over, you know exactly what happened to Tim and Kaylie when they were kids, and while you don’t always know if the switches from the present to the past are simply flashbacks or if the mirror is making them relive their childhood experiences, the general flow of what’s happening is clear enough.

Plus, the characters of Tim and Kaylie are very likeable too. They’re well-written and well-acted, and you really come to root for them as the movie goes on. You want them to succeed in their attempt to destroy the mirror in the present, and although you already know how their childhood story ends, the movie still manages to make you worry about their younger selves and wonder just how that part of the story will get to its inevitable conclusion.

In particular, the actress who plays young Kaylie, Annalise Basso, deserves special mention. She manages to convey a feeling of absolute terror while also having to be brave for her brother, and I think this performance would have made her a star if more people had seen the movie.

All in all, if you’ve never seen Oculus, I highly recommend that you check it out. In my opinion, it’s one of the best horror movies of the 2010’s, and it introduced me to a filmmaker that I still follow today. Any time I hear about a new project that Mike Flanagan is working on, I always get really excited because I know he’s going to turn out quality work, and it’s all thanks to a great first impression he made back in 2014.