Oculus is about one adjustment away from being a superior thriller.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 5, 2015

Praised on the festival circuit, it's got what it takes to succeed outside of that rarefied atmosphere.

| Original Score: 8.2/10 | Jan 5, 2015

Horror fans may find the reflection a little familiar.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 5, 2015

What's missing? A sense of the ineffable.

| Jan 5, 2015

Oculus, a cleverer-than-average haunted-house movie... speaks to a couple of widespread anxieties-one topical, the other sadly timeless.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 5, 2015

This unpretentiously efficient affair handles its dual-narrative past/present intercuts with aplomb and keeps a couple of nicely nasty tricks up its sleeve.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 15, 2014

Smart, scary stuff.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 12, 2014

Irrationality and mysticism take guide the action in a manner reminiscent of Italian splatter maestro Lucio Fulci in his Artaud-riffing pomp.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 12, 2014

The film's pushed on by a whip-smart performance from Gillan, who can rattle her way through reams of dead-serious exposition without making heavy weather of it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 12, 2014

As far as competence goes, Oculus doesn't have so little as to be accidentally entertaining or enough to come close to working.

| Apr 17, 2014

A deeply silly and mildly effective horror movie about two young-adult siblings coping with the mysterious deaths of their parents.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 11, 2014

Solid performances and a few memorable images save it from disaster but Flanagan's film left me longing for the movie it could have been instead of what it actually is.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 11, 2014

"Oculus" is haunting because it messes with your head. That's where the ghosts are.

| Original Score: B | Apr 11, 2014

What makes Oculus ingenious is how Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard take this hackneyed storyline and twist it - round 'n' round - ad infinitum into a dizzying corkscrew of a narrative.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 11, 2014

The elegant use of wide screen can't totally obscure stiff acting, and the rug pulling finally seems arbitrary. When nothing can be trusted, the mirage of suspense disappears.

| Apr 10, 2014

Less concerned with fake shocks and show-me violence than the grimly calibrated rotting of personalities, "Oculus" is one of the more intelligently nasty horror films in recent memory.

| Apr 10, 2014

Originally a 30-minute short, director Mike Flanagan and his co-writer Jeff Howard's thin scenario does not improve when expanded to feature length.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 10, 2014

"Oculus" director Mike Flanagan has crafted a satisfyingly old-fashioned ghost story that, in its evocation of shivery dread, is the most unnerving poltergeist picture since "The Conjuring."

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 10, 2014

It's never actually scary.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 10, 2014

Director Mike Flanagan turns the fragile nature of consciousness into a better fear tactic than any visceral shocks could possibly achieve.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 10, 2014