Theatrical Review: Oculus (2014)

Despite being Rated R, we were fully expecting Oculus to be another in the long line of disappointing PG-13-like efforts that Hollywood loves to churn out on a regular basis.

Let's face it: most Hollywood produced Horror flicks end up being bland, cheesy, paint-by-number dreck that no one really likes, but that turn just enough profit for Studios to continue to make them.

Add to that stigma the fact that this is partly a WWE Studios production, and we had very little hope for this movie to be anything but shit. I mean have you seen most of the WWE's movie ventures? With a few exceptions, most of them feel like C-Grade action flicks.

Turns out though that Oculus was a pretty solid effort that hit most of the marks that it was aiming for. Maybe it was Blumhouse's involvement; they do have a pretty solid track record (about 60/40 in our book) over the past few years for turning out good movies.

The two main plotlines in Oculus involve siblings Tim and Kaylie, and are split between two different time periods: present day, and 11 years earlier. They both unfold simultaneously via flashback, and at one point we're pretty sure that they even intersected, but we were drunk, so who can truly say.

The film opens in the past, where older Tim levels a gun at younger Tim and Kaylie, and pulls the trigger. Yes, older Tim and younger Tim were in the same room at the same time. We're sure it will all be explained later on in the movie.

"Don't taze shoot me, bro!"

In present day, older Tim is being released from the nuthouse, presumably after being cured of whatever made him shoot his sister; and older Kaylie, whom he didn't apparently shoot at all, is buying a mirror from the "Levesque" estate (nice cheesy Triple H reference, WWE) at a auction. Kaylie has been obsessed with the Triple H mirror since it killed her parents 11 years earlier...

That is not what we meant when we said "send us nudes."

But wait, why was Tim locked away then? Because he shot his Dad, who killed his Mom at the urging of some creepy whore who lives in the mirror, even though at the beginning of the movie it was his Sister that he was pointing the gun at...

And we're already confused.

Look closely: his hand looks like an evil face. (We're still drunk, apparently.)

Anywho, it's the Triple H mirror that killed their parents and caused Tim to be committed for so long, because it's evil and needs souls or something. Kaylie spent the 11 years since the murders researching the Triple H mirror, and discovered that everyone who has owned it has either disappeared or died painfully. Also, it eats dogs.

Also, WTF is that!?!

From here on out, the movie jumps back and forth between the past and present, showing us how the events of Tim and Kaylie's lives play out in both timelines. It all began to make perfect sense once we realized that the mirror was fucking with us as much as it was the characters, because we got to a point where we weren't sure what was real and what wasn't, and were about as clueless (and helpless) as the characters in the movie were. Bravo, Triple H mirror.

You're doing it wrong.

Oculus is a movie that will mess with your mind far more than it will scare you. Don't get us wrong, there are plenty of eerie moments in this movie, and a few tense scenes that will have you on edge, but for the most part, it plays out more like a mystery than it does a pure Horror flick. All the same, Oculus is a creepy ghost story that kept us guessing for its entire runtime.

We'd still hug her.

As clever and engaging as the plot was, it was the cast that truly held the movie together. Karen Gillan was great as Kaylie. With some of us never having never seen Dr. Who before (not my bag, baby), this was our first exposure to her, and we were impressed. Same goes for Brenton Thwaites; new to us, but we were definitely impressed us with his chops. We've been fans of Katee Sackhoff and Rory Cochrane since forever, so it's always good to see them in anything new.

Annalise Basso deserves a lot of credit here too. She played young Kaylie with talent beyond her years, and she might just have been the most impressive one in the cast. We'll no doubt be seeing more of her in the future.
 

That mirror is scandalous!

The biggest issue that most people are going to have with this movie is that it's confusing. Not only do the timelines jump back and forth (and even intersect), but the film doesn't always play by its own rules. ***SPOILERS*** For instance: the mirror is really hard to crack/break, but when the kid shoots his dad, the dad's body flying into the mirror was enough to crack it. Alright, but why then didn't the weighted anchor crack it when it impaled "someone" right up against it. Two bodies being thrown against the mirror, and only one time does it crack. ***SPOILERS***

Once you get wise to what the mirror is, and what it's doing though, the confusion will lessen considerably, so just tough it out until then.

But why did it crack?

The ending also left us a bit underwhelmed. You almost knew it had to end the way that it did, but it left us feeling cold and unsatisfied all the same. I don't know exactly what we were expecting, but it was something more than what we got. Maybe it's just us.

You're still doing it wrong!

Oculus is a genuinely creepy movie that takes its time, establishes one hell of a backstory, and delivers a compelling ghost story filled with characters that are easy to root for. You'll be on the edge of your seat during much of this one, unless of course your overly-cynical or don't have a pulse, and even then...

The bottom line is that Oculus is well worth spending 100 minutes of your time on.

Oculus is still in some Theaters now, and will be hitting Blu-ray, DVD & VOD sometime in August.

B+

Fanboy faves Karen Gillan (the fiery ginger from Dr. Who), and Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck!) acted their asses of in this one. Karen Gillan has now proven that she can carry a movie all by herself, so we imagine that she'll be doing more of that soon enough. She needs to be a Bond Girl/Sexy Bond Villainess. That would be money in the bank.

The Digital Dread Report for the week of May 28th

We're finally back from our various Memorial Day excursions, and minus some allergy suffering and one freak chainsaw injury (true story), we're all in one piece.

Sleepaway Camp and Cheap Thrills are our Must Own titles for this, the last week in May. The former is a cheesy 80's classic with one of the best twist endings in Horror Movie History, and the latter is a slick & twisted little Thriller that is one of our favorite flicks of 2014. Both movies are well worth owning, or at the very least, renting.

Death Spa is another obscure 80's Slasher flick that we'd love to own on Blu-ray, but the $29.99 price tag is a little crazy for a not-all-that-great movie like this. When the price drops, we'll grab this one up in short order.

Dan Curtis' Dracula and the two new Redemption releases are worth a look-see, though not immediate buys for us. It's also great to see the first two season of Longmire finally seeing a Blu-ray release; it's a fun show and deserves to be seen in HD.

That's it for this post-Holiday Digital Dread Report. Now please excuse us while we go get ready for June...

VOD Review: Blood Glacier (2014)

Let's get two things straight right off the bat here:

1- People can compare Blood Glacier to John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing all they want to, but this movie is in no way even close to that same level of quality. Both are set in deserted, remote, and snowy locales; and both involve hostile organisms inhabiting hosts and mutating them. That is where the similarities end.

2- The English language dub of this movie was so bad that it was comical at times. Like Bad Movie comical. Blood Glacier is a perfect example of why Foreign films should be seen in their native language, with appropriate subtitles.

All of that said, for being a movie that was reportedly made on a very tiny budget (Euro's? Schillings?), Blood Glacier was a lot of mindless fun.

Blood Glacier aka Blutgletscher aka The Station, is the story of how climate change is slowly destroying our world, and subsequently spawning Blood Glaciers that are out to mutate our genetics and kill us.

Deep in the Austrian Alps, a misfit band of scientists discover a glacier that is made of blood. Everyone thinks this is a great discovery save for Janek, who is more interested in drinking and being all moody. When Janek's dog, Tinnie, wanders his dumb ass into the glacier and is attacked by something which everyone assumes is a rabid fox, it becomes apparent that something is amiss with their wonderful new discovery. From this point forward, the words "rabid" and "fox" are used around 436 times throughout the film.

The shittiest drawing of a fox shitting out a croissant, ever.

As the scientists try to figure out what in the hell is going on with the bleeding ice and rabid foxes, a group of journalists are escorting Santa Claus and his wife to the remote encampment. This group is lead (of course) by Janek's ex-girlfriend, who abandoned he and Tinnie months ago, and killed his baby (Janek's, not Tinnie's. We think.) Meanwhile, the Blood Glacier disappears, and Janek pisses on a giant mutated bug, which either kills it or renders it inert. *At this point, we paused the movie and did 14 shots of whiskey, because there was no way we were watching the rest of this crazy mess sober.

Santa can't believe that Mrs. Claus is drunk... again.

A girl in a skimpy top and shorts comes running out of nowhere, being chased by a mutant pigeon or something, and ends up getting herself stung in the leg. Why she's jogging through the Austrian Alps wearing next to nothing is beyond us, because we assumed that anywhere there's a (blood) glacier, it would be cold as hell. Maybe that's because of global warming too... Anywho, the group lead by Janek's ex finds the injured girl, and takes her to the research station. Then a retarded Ibex attacks, the old woman flips her shit and starts attacking things with a giant drill, a guy's neck explodes into a shower of flying insects, and poor Tinnie becomes a mother, even though he' a boy.

We're not really sure what in the hell we just watched.

"Boy, what is it? Have you crazy?"

There are some really good moments throughout Blood Glacier; some are funny, some are creepy, and some made us think "where the hell did they come up with this shit?" As schlocky as Blood Glacier's mutated beasts looked at times, they also managed to feel fairly threatening and ominous (The mutant Ibex was a thing of twisted beauty.) The movie also boasts a good level of practical FX and gore that was fun and entertaining for the most part.

This is a movie that was made on the cheap, and definitely makes the most out of its limited resources. The gorgeous Austrian Alps locales helped a lot in that department.

Oh yeah, and the dog in this movie, Tinnie (credited as Santos on IMDB) is gorgeous. He was also the best actor of the bunch as well. Don't believe us? He's credited 4th in the cast list. We are not even kidding.

"Oh God, I can see forever!"

***BEWARE ENDING SPOILERS***
The ending made us shake our heads. The pure silliness of it, especially in relation to the whole "abortion" discussion earlier in the film, just made no sense. I mean how did the dog "give birth" to a mutant humanoid? We imagine that Tinnie licking Janek's hand while infected had something to do with it, but come on. And as scientists, do they think that bringing the mutant baby back to civilization is a wise move? What, are they actually going to raise it as their own?

There's really no way that this ending was meant to be taken seriously, and if it was, then whoever conceived of such a thing should stop conceiving of things going forward.
***BEWARE ENDING SPOILERS***

I guess holding his beard makes her feel safer in the presence of the Blood Glacier?

The English language dub in this movie is really, really bad, and we're pretty sure that most people who see it will think that it's supposed to be a Horror Comedy, when it absolutely is not. At one point, the voice acting reminded us a lot of Team America: World Police a movie that is hilarious and brilliant, and obviously played campy and for laughs. This movie is played straight, but felt like a parody at times because of the voice acting.

Yes, the voice acting in this movie horrified us this much.

Blood Glacier boasts some fun, if not fantastic, practical effects. A bunch of nasty gross-out moments mixed in with some mongoloid Muppet-like monsters make this movie fun on a "B-Movie of the 1950's" level. 

"Hi!"

Nope.

Take your cheesy pick:

"Boy, what is it? Have you crazy?"
"I have to find out whats wrong with my glacier!"
"No, it stinks of science history!"
"Stop eating that banana while you're crying!" *Best line of the movie.
"It's one less person to fart holes into the climate!"

That old lady and her shenanigans were the best part of the movie.

On a base level, this movie was enjoyable enough. If you can get past the horrible dialogue and dubbing, the cheesy mutant animal effects, and the plot points that are either ham-fisted or ridiculous, then you may just appreciate what's left on a purely B-Movie level. The best way to watch Blood Glacier is with lowered expectations, a gang of friends, and a case or two of beer. Or weed. Weed would probably work wonders here too.

Blood Glacier is available now on VOD.

C

Edita Malovcic, Adina Vetter and Coco Huemer made Blood Glacier a prettier film.