The picture of Mike Flanagan, filmed in 2013, tells the viewer the story of brother and sister – Tim and Kaylee Russell. As children, they move to a new house with their parents. Their father, Alan, in honor of the move, decides to purchase some luxury for his office – an old antique mirror. Unfortunately, he had no idea about the dark history of this mirror, and soon strange phenomena begin to occur in the house. At first, all the plants in the house suffer, then the dog disappears, and in the end, the parents try to kill their children, eventually dying. Tim ends up in a hospital, while Kaylie is forced to deal with the nightmare of her past on her own. A few years after the tragedy, as adults, the brother and sister team up again in an attempt to destroy the cursed mirror. They have a clear plan, but, alas, the evil in the house turns out to be stronger, and the story ends tragically again: Kaylie dies, and Tim is blamed for her death.
The meaning of the film “Oculus”
The meaning of The Oculus can be viewed from two different points of view, it depends on how you prefer to see this film.
Looking at this picture with the eyes of a lover of mysticism and horror, the viewer will receive the story of an ancient mirror that stores something dark in itself, driving dozens of people crazy over the entire history of its existence. Knowing the canons of horror films, it can be assumed that some equally dark story is connected with such an antique effect, and given that the film contained the image of the mysterious Marisol, a creepy woman with mirror-like eyes, we can conclude that it was from her the curse of the mirror began. On the Internet, you can find information about Marisol Chavez, who in 1975 died due to a hemorrhage from a miscarriage in front of a mirror in the bedroom, where she tried to hide from persecution, but it is worth noting that this information is not accurate and is only one of the versions. However, it seems quite logical: the spirit of a woman dying in agony is imprisoned in a mirror, and all the pain turns her into a cruel monster.
If, however, “to descend from heaven to earth” and analyze this work with the help of science and realism, the result will be no less frightening, but even the opposite. The mother of the family, Marie, apparently had some kind of mental illness that had not previously manifested itself in a serious form, but after the move (which, by the way, could mean circumstances that were painful for her, left behind the scenes), the disease gradually began to manifest itself and grow : hallucinations appeared, the woman began to be haunted by paranoid thoughts, which were based on a strong suspicion of her husband’s infidelities. The notes about Marisol in Alan’s office finally “activated” her madness, prompting the aggression she showed towards the children. The father of the family, seeing what is happening to his wife, is forced not to stop her in the most peaceful way. He is shocked, fear for his wife consumes him, and he also loses his adequacy, isolating himself from the whole world and practically not noticing his own children. Holding on to the hope that the one he loves can still be saved, he releases her, and faces the consequences of this mistake – now he is forced to kill her before she kills their children. This finishes off the man, and with the help of his son, he commits suicide. Naturally, all this does not pass without a trace for the children, and they, perhaps having inherited their mother’s illness, begin to go crazy, finding themselves in the very house where everything happened and where terrible memories were kept. The rest: a ghost woman, burning eyes, mysterious incidents – can only be an indicator of the madness of the heroes, confusion in their minds, or an attempt to escape from the hard truth, attributing their fate to an evil spirit from the mirror, and not to cruel reality.
How exactly to perceive the “Oculus” is up to you.
End of the film “Oculus”
At the end of the film, we see the end of two stories – both for children and for adults. In both versions, there is someone’s death, the police, and the subsequent arrest of Tim Russell as the perpetrator of the murder. Little Tim, sitting in a police car, sees the ghosts of his parents in the window of the house, an adult sees his whole family in the same window. The scene in which little Kaylie hugs her mother through the mirror serves as hints at the ultimate fate of the character, and may also mean that after death the heroine found peace and met her parents on the other side. Tim, on the other hand, understands that the evil lurking in his former home is much stronger than him, and having made an attempt to end it, the guy was defeated, losing his entire family. He will probably never return to his former life, because this time he is no longer a child, and the police have direct evidence of his guilt; Tim is waiting for confinement in prison or a psychiatric hospital.
