Oculus

Oculus is a horror movie about a haunted mirror. I know, I know. It sounds like a hackneyed plot - something out of a Stephen King spoof - but it's also one that, if you give the premise a chance, is rife with potential. And it's potential that newcomer Mike Flanagan taps into successfully, crafting a fiendish, creepy and effective horror film.

Oculus stars Karen Gillen and Brenton Thwaites as Kaylie and Tim Russell: siblings whose family has been plagued with tragedies ever since their parents acquired an old mirror known as the Lasser Glass when they were children. Tim and Kaylie become convinced that, somehow, it's the mirror's insidious effect that's responsible for the horrors that befall their family. As a result of these tragedies, Tim is institutionalised, but not before he and Kaylie promise to reunite upon his release and destroy the mirror once and for all...

Eleven years later, and Tim is convinced that the "evil mirror" was simply a construct of two frightened children seeking to ascribe meaning to their parents' apparent breakdown. Kaylie feels differently, and has set out an intricate room of cameras and traps to catch the mirror in action and prove that it emits a supernatural force. Thus the Mulder and Scully dynamic is set, and the pair set out to prove the other wrong.

It's not too much of a spoiler to suggest that there are in fact supernatural goings-on afoot with the Lasser Glass, but it's to the script's credit that during the early going it very plausibly sets out a scenario whereby Kaylie is simply delusional and Tim's logical explanations win out. It's not a novel angle for a supernatural horror to take, but it's effectively utilised here.

As the film progresses, all sense of reality begins to warp and shift and, like the siblings, you're never quite sure what's real and what's not. It's impressively, deviously constructed by director Mike Flanagan, who's also on editing duties.

The notion of a haunted mirror begins to pay dividends as the film progresses: the malicious force that dwells within the Lasser Glass begins to prey on the characters' self-doubts and fears, as they see their insecurities reflected back at them. And that's what a mirror allows - a window to the self but also to another world; a portal that distorts and bends reality back in ways that don't seem possible. It's these inherent features of a looking-glass that Flanagan's clever film employs to disarm the audience.

The best horror takes aspects of everyday life and turns them into something terrifying, and Oculus does that not only by rending the inanimate object of a mirror scary - and mirrors are something that we encounter every day - but also by tapping into the unthinkable prospect of our own parents turning on us. The notion of our parents - the two people in the world who are supposed to love us unconditionally - actively seeking to harm us and worse is a truly horrible one. It makes Oculus at times as much a family psycho-drama as it is a horror film - and arguably it's that side of things that proves most effective.

As the lead, Karen Gillen is superb throughout. Best known as one of The Doctor's many assistants on Doctor Who, any fears about Gillen's distinctive Scottish brogue seeping through into her American accent are quickly assuaged: Gillen more than passes muster as an American. Equally effective are the rest of the cast, which is padded out with Rory Cochrane and Katee Sackhoff as the Russell parents, and Annalise Basso and Garret Ryan as young Kaylie and Tim.

The youngsters, in particular, are impressive - co-leads almost - as twin stories unfold eleven years apart with the siblings' present-day quest, and the slowly unravelling story of what happened to them a decade previously, being told almost in tandem.

The two narrative threads often coincide, but it's never clear whether it's as a film-making transitional effect - a way of telling the audience "we're in a flashback now" - or whether the stories are actually intersecting as a part of the narrative, and the reality bending power of the mirror. When Tim passes his younger self on the stairs, is it a flashback, a memory, or something more? That you can never tell is testament to Flannagen's supremely effective film-making.

Less effective are the supernatural entities that parade through the film. They're the clichéd figures in white gowns, with long, lank, black hair, pale complexions and sinister eyes - the same thing you've seen a hundred times before - and they're relatively uninteresting. As a result, Oculus is never a scary film, but rather relies on a creepy atmosphere, which ends up working in its favour. The understated score by the Newton Brothers helps maintain the sense of developing dread.

If the twisty plot and the melding of past and present becomes increasingly confusing the longer the film goes on, then that's only because it's supposed to. The unreliable nature of what we're seeing due to the mirror's influence puts us in the same position as Tim and Kaylie - trying to figure out just what the hell is real! It's credit to Flanagan's strong grasp of his film that Oculus is only confusing when it means to be.

The climax is effective, but also leaves things rather open-ended, with things nicely balanced for the potential of numerous sequels. And, with the Lasser Glass' long, storied past, there are plenty of opportunities for period-prequels too. If they can all be constructed as well as this, then perhaps with Oculus and the Lasser Glass, a welcome new horror franchise is born...