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Join BP, Coop and Justin as review Oculus, the 2013 American supernatural psychological horror film co-written, edited, and directed by Mike Flanagan. It is based on his short film Oculus: Chapter 3 – The Man with the Plan, and stars Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaites as two young adult siblings who are convinced that an antique mirror is responsible for the death and misfortune that their family had suffered.

The film had its world premiere on September 5, 2013, at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and received a wide theatrical release on April 11, 2014. It received generally positive reviews from critics, and was a box office success.

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Chapters

00:00 Mirror Mirror

00:11 Title Sequence

00:29 Introducing Oculus

01:10 Overall Thoughts

04:20 Favourite Parts

08:03 What We Disliked

10:17 Trivia

14:19 Ratings

16:08 Thank You

16:33 Mirrors

Oculus is based on director, co-writer, and editor Mike Flanagan's earlier 2005 short horror film, Oculus: Chapter 3 – The Man with the Plan. The short contained only one setting, a single actor, and a mirror. The short became highly acclaimed, and interest quickly arose regarding the adaptation of the short into a feature. Initially, studios were interested in found footage format; however, Flanagan was opposed to this and passed on such offers. Eventually, Intrepid Pictures expressed interest in producing the film "as long as you don't do it found footage".

Expanding the premise to a feature-length screenplay proved challenging, as Flanagan felt like he had "pushed the limit" of what could be done with the premise in the short. The solution Flanagan came across was to combine two storylines, past and present, intercut with one another. The idea was to "create a sense of distortion and disorientation that would be similar for the viewer as it was for Tim and Kaylie in the room." In early drafts, it was difficult to distinguish between the two timelines, until the team hit upon the idea of writing all of the scenes from the past in italics.

Inspired by the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, Flanagan chose to not explain the mirror's origins, explaining that he liked how Lovecraftian literature often seemed to be an "alien force that if you even were to try to comprehend it completely it would drive you mad." He expanded: "Evil in the world doesn't have an answer."

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