Oculus (2014) Trailer
Finally, one of my favourite films of last year gets a wider trailer after that amusing TiFF screening;
OK, yes, it’s a standard issue 21st century horror genre trailer which I’m sure won’t necessarily raise the required chilly hackles, but as the current crop of American horror goes this was one of the more inventive efforts of recent years. I’m sure it will go straight to DVD here in the UK though, although maybe some domestic festival will pick it up for big screen reflection. In other news, rumors are gathering of potential guests at tomorrow nights Quinquagenary Kubrick themed BFI event…
Toronto Film Festival 2013 – Day Eight
So we final enter the final stretch, as the press screening schedule declines precipitately after today so I may resort to some sight-seeing to fill my remaining days – what a tough gig. I see from my Twitter feed that the usual problems with public bookings for the LFF are causing the usual frustrations, with the exception of Nebraska and Inside Llewyn Davis all I′m interested in is correcting some of the films I couldn′t slot in here – Only Lovers Left Alive, Blue Is The Warmest Colour, The Double and 12 Years A Slave. Oh, and of course this;
Can Terry give us a updated Brazil? It got slated at Venice though, but what do we stupid critics know eh? Anyway, back to Toronto, and an evening double bill began with this paranoid thriller;
Very good it was too, superbly edited and a fine thriller which zips around Seoul with a Tony Scott hyperkinetic speed, it also had a finely detailed use of the technology and modern surveillance techniques used to combat a genuinely badass nemesis – unsurprisingly its already been picked up for US rape remake. I′ve desperately wanted to find at least one good horror film here given the thin offerings of Inferno and Cheerleaders so I took a chance with Oculus, a film I knew precisely zero, zip, nada, nil point etc. about, again no trailer for the film but I subsequently found this which is a glimpse of the short that the film was expanded from;
Wow, I cannot stop raving about this film, its the best American horror film I′ve seen in a decade at least, up their with Excession and Orphan as simultaneously inventive, unusual, and genuinely creepy. The premise sounds ridiculous on paper – oooh, a spooky haunted mirror – but believe me what newcomer Mike Flanagan manages to achieve is worthy of comparison to early John Carpenter with serrated fragments of The Shining – this my learned friends is praise that is not given lightly.
Final movie day tomorrow, we’re winding down now….
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