Oculus
Dir: Mike Flanagan
2013
****
In many respects there is nothing new about Mike Flanagan's horror concept. Haunted inanimate objects are nothing new in the world of horror and Mirrors in particular have played a big part over the years. Who can forget Donald Pleasence smashing the evil mirror in John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness or Bruce Campbell fighting with his own reflection in Evil Dead II? Mirror's are the gateway to another world, we know this already. However, Flanagan doesn't go into the why's and what's, he does a Stephan King and gives us a multi-timeline adventure and states that the mirror is evil because it just is. He almost skips the first 3 or 4 films of the franchise and goes straight for the reboot/re imagining, the 'Wes Craven's New Nightmare' if you will. The audience is tired of the same old thing so he tells it in a different way, our lead characters are ready for a fight. This means that instead of screaming at the screen and pointing out the cliches, you are intrigued, thrilled and even a little scared. It's been a while since I've been either of those three things during a horror film and I applaud Oculus's originality.