MovieChat Forums > Oculus (2014) Discussion > The movie just raises too many "logical"...

The movie just raises too many "logical" questions....


While I do like the premise of this movie - a girl seeking revenge on a killer-mirror - it just fails to explain the logic of all the characters actions.

I can buy minor things, such as psychiatric care bringing amnesia at such an extreme level to the brother.
The brother questioning the Mirrors track record as "evidence" - no piece of furniture would ever have a track record of so much gruesome death unless its in the middle of a massacre/battle. Or the sister simply not explaining WTH is going on until the brother actually gets to the house, its annoying - but I understand the director just wants her to draw up this "complete" battleplan to the viewer.

While at the beginning you just have to assume she knows what she is saying and has a plan with everything, it becomes more and more clear she is just pulling things out of her ass.

1. She assumes the mirror is a very intelligent being fearing her "kill-switch" - while at the same time she assumes the mirror is purely dumb and will just act predictable instead of masking its power... She even explains her "plan" infront of it, making sure she can't possibly fool it.

2. How does she know it needs power from the dog before it can be "active"?

3. WTH does she know about its radius of influence? How can she assume it strictly eats plants in "its" radius? Oh right, its completely mindless, but she knows its not...

4. Why is drinking and eating so important? While it does indeed seem to feed on people (through the stories), it should be clear through her own memories that its real power lies in its psychological effects. So instead of coming up with a strategy to fend against the real danger she decides fighting thirst is enough? Or does she "know" the clock ringing will always "wake her"? Nothing in the flashbacks suggests these strategies holds any merit.

5. Why is it so important that the husband calls? If they won't respond - was he supposed to just waltz over there while the mirror either had kiled them or controlled them? Just seems like the movie makers threw in random stuff to make her "seem" smart.

6. At the first scene where the mirror shows its power it is simply way too overpowerd, it makes them both move the cameras at a whim and you just have to hopoe the Sister has a major ace up her sleeve - else the mirror can just do whatever it wants for the rest of the movie. So what happens?
The mirror just does whatever it feels like and our protagonists are 100% helpless through the entire thing. No secret backup plan, nothing.

Who came up with that stupid *beep* Why didn't they atleast include some weakness to the mirror in the siblings backstory that the sister thought she could abuse?

The plot is just a dumb excuse to throw in whatever scary stuff they feel like... Such a poorly thought through movie, it simply assumes its audiance won't question any of the motivation or "knowledge" of the characters.

The only thing the viewers could hope for was a hidden masterplan from the sister which explains every folly, it wouldn't have mattered if it failed or succeeded. But having her simply break psychologically when her obviously retarded "plan" (Which became painfully obvious when the entire backstory was revealed.) didn't work out - that was just silly.


So in the end - the entire movie was just watching an obviously overpowerd mirror do whatever it "felt" like and nothing in the backstory suggested the mirror wasn't 100% overpowered - thus every action from the protaganists not only seem painfully stupid, but also were stupid...

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Just for fun, I'll try to answer some of these.

1. Yes that was dumb, but more to the point it was arrogant. I rather liked the planning and thought Kaylee puts into it, even if it is flawed. What matters is it's flawed for a reason, namely she cares more about vindication (and straight up revenge) than she does for actually destroying the mirror. It's not even so much about proving it's supernatural so much as it's about her proving it's supernatural and her then killing the mirror.

2. She goes through historical evidence where dogs getting sick/disappearing was precedent for people going crazy. The mirror seems to kill/feed off of lower lifeforms such as plants and pets before it starts messing with humans.

3. Yes it could be just screwing with her. On the other hand it's been sitting in storage for quite some time. Assuming it does need to "feed" to be strong enough to influence people's minds, it would kill the plants and it would only kill those it can reach. We can assume it does have some range limits otherwise it'd make the whole world go mad.

4. Mostly because of the story of the woman who died of dehydration in a full bathtub, implying that the mirror could just hold you in a daze while you starve/breathe to death. There is an indication that Kaylee doesn't fully understand how the mirror operates, despite her research and planning since she's looking for an observable physical effect (i.e. the mirror to directly influence the environment) where indeed everything it does has to do with twisting the victim's perceptions. To be fair, it's wouldn't be that evident from neither her experiences, nor her research that the mirror's manifestations aren't actually manifested anywhere but the victim's minds. For example, how would you know if the "mirror people" are actually there or you merely think they are?

5. The check-in was probably the best security measure implemented as it was something completely outside the mirror's influence. If Michael kept calling on the hour and Kaylee didn't answer or sounded weird, he was to call the cops to the address. Coming over himself was a dumb move on his part though it's ambiguous as to whether he was actually there or the mirror just made her think he was. Remember she gets a check-in call with his "corpse" right there and Tim doesn't actually acknowledge the body (we get a quick shot of him picking up a piece of broken vase but there is no body even though he should be looking in the same area).

6. That was the point. Like I said in #1, Kaylee's biggest mistake was wanting to be Johnny on the spot, facing and beating the mirror herself. What she should've done is move the observer/security controls offsite. Have her monitor the systems remotely (and hide them from sight). It would've required other test subjects to "bait" the mirror which might raise ethical problems but it would get the job done. The mirror is powerful but I don't think it's invincible.


Sorry you didn't see any value in the movie but I thought it was really well done. In a nutshell, yes the protagonist's plan was flawed but there was a reason for that and it was quite enjoyable nonetheless. It basically started the "what would you do" discussion for us. And it's certainly better than the protagonists just stupidly running around and screaming at jump scares.

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4. Mostly because of the story of the woman who died of dehydration in a full bathtub, implying that the mirror could just hold you in a daze while you starve/breathe to death.


And don't forget the over 300 pound man who drastically lost weight after purchasing it.

Of course both he and the woman that drowned were in possession of the mirror for a while before they died, so it likely influenced them for some time, thus negating the need to feed and hydrate themselves. She was planning on destroying the mirror within a day or so, so there really wasn't a need for the constant food and water.

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I can buy minor things, such as psychiatric care bringing amnesia at such an extreme level to the brother.


He doesn't have amnesia. He's just become convinced that his memory of events was wrong. He remembers the events, he just doesn't accept his memories as true.

The brother questioning the Mirrors track record as "evidence" - no piece of furniture would ever have a track record of so much gruesome death unless its in the middle of a massacre/battle.


You would be surprised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crying_Boy

Or the sister simply not explaining WTH is going on until the brother actually gets to the house, its annoying - but I understand the director just wants her to draw up this "complete" battleplan to the viewer.


She didn't tell her brother because she knew he would never go along with it. Since he is presently convinced that their previous experience with the mirror were false memories generated by psychological trauma.

While at the beginning you just have to assume she knows what she is saying and has a plan with everything, it becomes more and more clear she is just pulling things out of her ass.


The reason her plan is so flawed is because she isn't fully aware of what the mirror is capable of. It never gave her and Tom hallucinations when they were kids, so she had no idea how much control it would have over them. Her plan might have worked, except it was capable of much more than she was aware.

1) She never assumes the mirror is intelligent. She never once implies that it's intelligent. She only assumes it has evil intent.

2) She doesn't know. She assumes that because the first victim in her own experience was a dog and that after it "consumed" the dog events ramped up, that the same thing would happen this time. Most of what she has to go on is based on her own experience with the mirror, which was limited.

3) Well obviously it has a radius of influence. It isn't affecting the entire world, so she concludes that there must be some kind of limit to it's area of influence. The problem is, once you're within it's area of influence it can control you.

4) This one is obvious. Eating and drinking is important to any living creature. The longer you go without eating or drinking the weaker you become both physically and psychologically. And again, she isn't fully aware of what the mirror is capable of. It never controlled them as children the way it did their parents. She isn't aware of the biggest dangers when facing the mirror.

5) Because he's outside of the influence of the mirror. The idea is that since he wasn't under the influence of the mirror, his calls would be genuine. But again, the reason it didn't work is because she underestimated the power of the mirror. If they didn't respond he was supposed to contact the police and inform them that he thinks Tom did something. Hence why she tells her husband that she's worried Tom might do something. Why doesn't she tell him what's really going on? Because he would think she's crazy just like everyone else who would hear the "mirror is evil" theory. He has NO IDEA what they're up to at the house.

6) You missed the scene at the auction house? It was already influencing her and absorbing her energy before they even get to the house. She pulls the cover off of it at the auction house and it presents her with the idea that there are 3 busts instead of 2 and that the sheets covering them are moving. Having them move the cameras is NOT the first thing it does. It also made him put the stool down when he's about to smash it. It's feeding on both of them at that point.

The mirror just does whatever it feels like and our protagonists are 100% helpless through the entire thing. No secret backup plan, nothing.


Again, your position relies on the idea that Kaylee had perfect knowledge of the mirror and its abilities. She did not, since as I said, she wasn't influenced like her parents were. She saw them descend into madness, but she had no idea why. Only a belief that the mirror had something to do with it.

Who came up with that stupid *beep* Why didn't they atleast include some weakness to the mirror in the siblings backstory that the sister thought she could abuse?


It does have a weakness and Kaylee tries to exploit it. It's weakness being that it can't control inanimate objects of physics. The problem is, she foolishly left the mechanism to destroy the mirror within its area of influence. The mirror became damaged in the past because it couldn't physically stop the fathers head from hitting it as he fell.

Now, if she had had someone sitting outside the area of influence with their finger on a release button for the anchor, the story would have ended differently. But again, the problem is that Kaylee didn't know the mirror could completely circumvent her will. She thought it would drive them crazy. She wasn't aware it could completely circumvent her will.

The plot is just a dumb excuse to throw in whatever scary stuff they feel like... Such a poorly thought through movie, it simply assumes its audiance won't question any of the motivation or "knowledge" of the characters.


Seems to me that your entire post is just a dumb excuse to try and prove how smart you are. Unfortunately, the opposite seems to have happened. Since you clearly never questions the knowledge the characters actually possess.


The only thing the viewers could hope for was a hidden masterplan from the sister which explains every folly, it wouldn't have mattered if it failed or succeeded. But having her simply break psychologically when her obviously retarded "plan" (Which became painfully obvious when the entire backstory was revealed.) didn't work out - that was just silly.


Not true. As I've made very clear in this post, Kaylee's awareness of what the mirror is capable of is limited since it never influenced her and Tom the way it did their parents. Her imperfect knowledge explains the faults in her plan.

Her backstory is exactly what proves she couldn't have known how to really stop the mirror or even that her plan was doomed to fail.

So in the end - the entire movie was just watching an obviously overpowerd mirror do whatever it "felt" like and nothing in the backstory suggested the mirror wasn't 100% overpowered - thus every action from the protaganists not only seem painfully stupid, but also were stupid...


This makes absolutely no sense. I assume you didn't intend that double negative, but this still makes no sense. The mirror is incredibly powerful. The problem is that our protagonists aren't aware of just how powerful it is until it's entirely too late.

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

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Oh man I want to stand, clap, and hug you, all at the same time.
Hhahah isnt it crazy when you realize that your own perception is completly flawed by your own stupidity and arrogance? Oh no wait, it never happened to me or you, lets ask OP!! hahaaha
Oh my my... thanks King_of_Bob for taking the time of putting the snoby duchebag in its place, the entire cinephile audience salutes you.

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And I thank you for your thanks. I sometimes feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I visit the IMDb boards. It's posts like yours that help abate that feeling.

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

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haha yeah me too... and you are welcome!

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This movie was awesome. I've read quite a few posts of people being confused--which is fine, it just gets annoying when they call other people stupid for liking it when the reasons they give are ridiculous. The main point alot don't seem to grasp is they simply didn't know exactly how the mirror worked/operated and thought they could outsmart it, which they obviously couldn't do. I hope they make a part 2!

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Confusion is perfectly fine. That's the expected response for a movie that makes you question everything you're presented with. But ones confusion doesn't equal the movie being bad, or people who liked the confusing movie are stupid or lesser than those who don't.

To me, everything makes sense within the logic the film establishes. Which is all a story really needs to do.

The main point alot don't seem to grasp is they simply didn't know exactly how the mirror worked/operated and thought they could outsmart it, which they obviously couldn't do.


Exactly. They were out of their depth. Kaylee only knew as much about the mirror as she herself was able to uncover and there are HUGE gaps in the mirrors timeline. Since very few(if any) adults survived encounters with it, there aren't even any anecdotal evidence she could discover.

I did have an idea about what the mirror is and why the movie is called Oculus even though the word refers to an eye or a circular opening representing an eye. I think the mirror may actually be the eye of the devil(or some other entity of pure evil).

The idea occurred to me while watching the Everything Wrong With video for the movie where they bring up the point that a mirror is not an oculus. They also point out how it likes to mess with people instead of just straight up killing them.

There's also the fact that the mirror has no known origin as of the end of the first film. There are definitely some interesting ideas they have to work with for the sequel. The thing is, for us to get real answers about the origin and history of the mirror we would have to have a prequel. Or maybe the next movie has the protagonist visit the brother in the mental hospital, since he's the only person alive who's experienced the mirrors evil.

Like I said, there's so many ways to go with a sequel it's hard to predict.

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

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She knew it made her parents do crazy things, so she could expect it to make them do crazy things.

She knew it made her and her brother think they were hitting it with golf clubs when they were actually hitting the wall. She knew one or both of them hallucinated a woman in the room with her father. So she could expect it to make them hallucinate and distort their perceptions.

But she did not safeguard against these things happening again.

She wasn't surprised or dismayed when she saw they had actually been moving the cameras.

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She knew it made her parents do crazy things, so she could expect it to make them do crazy things.


She had NO IDEA what drove her parents to that. She only knows what she personally experienced, and she didn't experience ANYTHING like her parents did. She thought it could make her do things, but she had no idea how far the manipulation went.

She knew it made her and her brother think they were hitting it with golf clubs when they were actually hitting the wall. She knew one or both of them hallucinated a woman in the room with her father. So she could expect it to make them hallucinate and distort their perceptions.


That wasn't a hallucination. She was actually there. But again, none of this could have possibly prepared them for what they experienced as adults. Their experience with the mirror when they were kids is VERY different from their experience as adults.

But she did not safeguard against these things happening again.


Again, the safeguards were based on what she experienced as a kid. She wasn't prepared for what she would face as an adult, because she couldn't possibly know that it would affect her differently.

She wasn't surprised or dismayed when she saw they had actually been moving the cameras.


That relates to the idea of them hitting the wall with the golf clubs. Again, she didn't know much the mirror could affect their perception or self control, because she didn't experience these effects to this degree.

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

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That relates to the idea of them hitting the wall with the golf clubs. Again, she didn't know much the mirror could affect their perception or self control, because she didn't experience these effects to this degree.


Your cognitive dissonance is astounding.
In the first sentence you very much acknowledge that she knew how far the mirror could distort reality, in the second sentence you simply say she didn't know...

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Not true. As I've made very clear in this post, Kaylee's awareness of what the mirror is capable of is limited since it never influenced her and Tom the way it did their parents. Her imperfect knowledge explains the faults in her plan.


Well they did see the woman, didn't they? And since we think the effects of the mirror are pure psychological they were affected. Which means she should have known better.

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The reason her plan is so flawed is because she isn't fully aware of what the mirror is capable of. It never gave her and Tom hallucinations when they were kids, so she had no idea how much control it would have over them.


She had one huge clue which was that she and Tim had tried to destroy the mirror with golf clubs and failed. She also saw firsthand what happened with both of her parents. After her research she also would have known the mirror got their dog too. She knew that it could make a women die of dehydration while in a bathtub of water.

The anchor thing was a fine idea. However, her failure was that she knew about it. She had firsthand experience with that the mirror is able to sense efforts to destroy it and that can manipulate perceptions to thwart those efforts.

Kaylee's plan was to dance about directly on front of the mirror with a dog in a cage and some houseplants? If you are going to wave a red cape in front of a bull you then need to have an escape plan that takes into account what the bull can do (and a few clowns to distract the bull).

The mirror was not 100% infallible. I believe both of their parents were able to show that their love of their children was stronger than the mirror. The mom stopped strangling Kaylee and the dad was both trying to save Tim and possibly was trying to destroy the mirror when he shot himself. The net result was both children were able to escape alive. It would have been interesting if Kaylee had been able to devise a plan that took advantage of those limitations of the mirror.

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You are just completely ignoring what the flashbacks tells us... She has so much knowledge and it doesn't align with her plan at all.

If this movie was properly thought through, then the flashbacks would support her plan and the viewer would be left hoping for their survival until the end where the cracks would eventually prove fatal.
Instead the movie completely disproves her plan the moment things are set in motion and the flashbacks tells us she had sufficient information all along. It's just lazy.



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the entire movie was just watching an obviously overpowerd mirror do whatever it "felt" like


Not familiar with Lovecraftian horror, I see.

Can't stop the signal.

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You forgot one : why, at the end, when Tim finds himself sitting in front of the mirror, on the wide shot that follows, do we NOT see Kaylie in the room on the computer screens (which are supposed to show things as they really happen), only a few seconds before Tim switches the anchor device...?
That's probably the "final cheat" that's been referred to by Film School Projects.
And it's a MASSIVE cheat, designed to allow the cruel ending (heck, if Tim had seen his sister in the screens he probably wouldn't have released the anchor...).
Apart from that, I do really agree with you on every single point.
That movie started slowly, had a rather good middle part and a terrible last third.

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Agreed on the "final cheat" part. The computer monitors suddenly didn't obey established rules.

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