"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.

Saw this at the Dead by Dawn film festival in Edinburgh and it was the best short film screened there this year in my opinion.Essentially this is a one man show with Scott Graham alone with an evil mirror for much of the running time. While this doesn't sound particularly exciting, this growing feeling of paranoia and the increasing madness of the lone character propel the story.Keep an eye on the video monitors that have been set up for the experiment, it's a small but very creepy touch.Oculus is part 3 of a 9 part story. If Mike Flanagan can keep up this level of invention then I look forward to further entries.

I was lucky enough to see this wonderful film at the Dead by Dawn Festival at the weekend. Oculus is a cheaply made film which is visible from the start. But that doesn't effect the impact this film has on an audience. An antique mirror with deadly powers is tracked down by a guy who's been researching into the deaths of the past people who have owned it. Setting up an experiment, consisting of several cameras, various alarms, a plant, a dog and a white sheet, he sets out to reveal the mysteries of the mirror once and for all. This short had some exceptional parts in it. *SPOILER* The mirror people bellowing out the sound of the alarm is so cool, the mirror ghost suddenly appearing when the lights flash scared the s***t out of me, and the mirror itself - for an everyday inanimate object really does strike a nerve. *END OF SPOILER* This film; considering its low budget, and its average acting is a very powerful film that produces some strange and interesting ideas. I would recommend anyone to see this short if they get the chance, and as its part 3, hopefully the i'll someday get the chance to see 1 and 2 - fingers crossed!