"Oculus: Chapter 3 - The Man with the Plan" is a half-hour short film from almost 10 years ago. The writer and director is Mike Flanagan and he also made a feature film based on this one here. The whole thing is basically about a man's desperate attempts to prove that an old mirror (in a very sterile environment) is haunted. It's basically a one-man show for the lead actor here and I guess he does a fine job all in all. The random rambling gets repetitive and annoying, but that's not his fault, but the script's. Still, the material is simply not good enough for 30 minutes here and I really hope Flanagan managed to step it up with the full feature. As for this film here, I was never scared and I was rarely entertained. The good thing is that the end is probably the biggest strength of the film after 25 minutes of boredom though, so that was not a big achievement exactly. All in all, a fairly forgettable film and I cannot say this got me curious at all about the director's other works. Not recommended.

Oculus was creepy and unnerving. It is a little over 30 minutes, it takes place entirely in a single, undecorated room, and is almost entirely performed by a single actor. A man locks himself in a room with a large decorative mirror. He has several recording devices set up to document what will happen. He turns the cameras on and begins explaining what led to this "experiment." It turns out that the mirror has a history of causing violent death in every place that it has hung, including the narrator's own home. His father and mother were among the mirror's victims, and now he wants to document its effects. By shutting himself up in the room and recording what happens, he intends to prove the mirror is cursed.In Oculus, there are very few special effects supplementing the performance. Yet, it builds incredibly well towards a tense, satisfying conclusion. For much of the film, the mirror actually stays covered up by a white sheet, but even without much happening visually, the film still creates and builds a tense atmosphere. I consider this short film to be one of the more effective entries in its genre.

How horror should be.I was fortunate enough to view this prior to The Call of Cthulhu at the Leeds Film Festival in 2006 and to be honest, Oculus was better.Goes to show that you don't need masses of blood and gore and elaborate sets to produce chilling horror.I found myself holding my breath on more than one occasion as well as looking for a non-existent cushion to hide behind!That's how good it is!The acting was brilliant and it was really well written - the story will appeal to any fan that loves a spine-chiller.Looking forward to other instalments and hoping to get this on DVD someday.

I recently saw this movie at a friends house and it proves the old adage "Small things come in little packages". The stark set, brilliant use lighting and sound make this a movie that keeps building until the final moments then leaves you wanting more.Alone the entire time, Scott Graham has no one to play off of, to react to, or to use as crutch through the film. Further more he had no elaborate set to take the eyes off him putting him even further in the spotlight. He did a superb job carrying the movie by himself and I hope to see him in more things in the future.This movie is not for the slasher/gore-fest crowd, but anyone that loves a well written, directed, and acted thriller will love this short film.