Well, if you've just answered 'yes', then the seemingly appropriate release date of Friday 13th June 2014 will be right up your street with new horror flick Oculus becoming available in a cinema near you. There's something addictive about horror films, that feeling you get as you divulge into a forbidden and taboo fascination with a story that is sure to bring about nightmares at bedtime, but you don't seem to mind. You crave that fear, and it is the same fear that will satisfy you in Oculus this Summer.
Karen Gillan makes her horror film debut in Oculus, starring as Kaylie Russell, a woman who tries to clear her brother Tim's (Brenton Thwaites) criminal record, which states that he was found guilty of murdering their parents ten years previous. She believes that it was not her brother who killed her parents ten years ago, but instead it is the fault of a malevolent spirit enclosed in a Lasser Glass, an antique mirror which resides in the family home of their childhood. Packed with disturbing hallucinations and fear, the film tells of Kaylie's struggle with finding out the truth, and of her consequent struggle with reality.
The idea of a demonic mirror may not be the most original after the 2008 production Mirrors which starred Kiefer Sutherland, but nobody can doubt the success of the idea. We all have at least one mirror in our possession, so it is a scenario that comes laced with realism as well as just making an interestingly scary movie. We were teased in January with the first trailer for Oculus, directed and written by Mike Flanagan, the very same man who brought us Paranormal Activity and Insidious, and we've just been treated with another this month. And boy, does he deliver!
Take a look at the trailer – just beware of the mirror, mirror on the wall...