‘Oculus’ smartly plays with visuals rather than gore

And here we thought mirrors were dangerous because of vanity.

Though, truth be told, there is a certain distorted beauty in “Oculus,” a cleverly designed tale of discerning reality from deadly illusion. A psychological thriller pulling plot elements from a myriad other sources (including “The Amityville Horror” and “The Shining”), “Oculus” may not break the horror genre mold, but that doesn’t stop it from being able to terrify you at a visceral level. Because what’s more scary than not knowing what’s real?

The premise of “Oculus,” directed by Mike Flanagan from a short of his in 2006, revolves around a slightly ostentatious mirror and its four-century-long path of death and devastation. Other than the mirror itself, the film doesn’t delve into grandeur. The story begins simply enough, with a sister, Kalyie (Karen Gillan), picking up her brother, Tim (Brenton Thwaites), from a mental hospital on his 21st birthday. The state has determined that he is no longer a danger to himself or society after being convicted of killing his father a decade earlier. He now knows he did the heinous act, no matter what he mind may say otherwise.

His sister, however, remembers the events of the fateful night a bit differently. Having spent the last decade on her own, she’s been seeking proof that their father’s homicidal breakdown was caused by something supernatural and that their parents’ madness was inflicted by the Lasser Glass (it even has a pretentious name), which may or may not be cursed. Or haunted. It’s never really explained. All we know it that it’s been at the scene of 40-plus deaths over the last 400 years.

Her brother, not surprisingly, thinks she’s gone too far in trying to find the mirror and prove its supernatural deadliness. He tries to convince that all her research is simply correlation, not causation. With multiple cameras pointing at the mirror, alarms clocks staggered to snap them from the illusions and food and water to keep them from becoming too weak. Kaylie’s singular mission is to prove the mirror’s malicious intent.

Well, let’s just say it doesn’t take long for the mirror to returns to its hallucinogenic, compelling ways. And with those nightmarish visions comes haunting memories of the past.

Which is a large component of “Oculus.” Director Flanagan cuts between the past — the tense days leading up to and including that fateful day — and present with increasing swiftness. By the film’s halfway mark, the past and present are bleeding together into single scenes, reflecting how history has a nasty tendency to repeat itself. Which could be a metaphor here, but I digress.

Tension rarely leaves the scenes as we struggle to discern what’s real and what’s illusion. Even the most mundane activities, like taking a bite out of an apple, because dangerous incidents here. From the moment the siblings regain contact with the mirror, you never know what’s reality. It’s a distorting effect as you’re trying to figure out what’s happening.

Our leads, though, may leave you a bit wanting. Gillan’s Kalyie is too singular in nature, too disturbingly focused on making a point. Her hubris is overwhelming, basically absorbing her more meek brother into this dangerous exhibition. Thwaites’s Tim just leaves you pitying the dude. It’s always a lose-lose scenario for him, and it doesn’t help matter that there’s a murder-inducing mirror always lurking in the background.

In the end, “Oculus” manages to take the pieces its pilfers from other, better movies and create something that’s just different enough to intrigue. The name of the game here is the questioning of reality, which is refresher from the use of gore and excess used to create horror. The premise is interesting, least because the film leaves off in such a way you can’t help but imagine sequels. This killer game of illusions has a lot of things going for it, even if reality isn’t one of them.

Three reality-altering stars out of five.

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Karen Gillan stars as Kaylie in “Oculus.” (Photo credit: Relativity Media)