CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
Film Review: ‘Oculus’ Succeeds Psychologically, Fails Supernaturally
CHICAGO – Films in general are knocked for being knockoffs of something else. Horror films in particular have it especially hard in the “new” department because we’re so quickly annoyed when we’ve “seen it all before”.
There are only so many ways to alter how you draw a circle. At the end of the day, you’ve still drawn a circle and the only difference is how you got there.
Rating: 3.0/5.0 |
“Oculus” starts with promise because Jason Blum is attached to it. Blum’s production company, Blumhouse Productions, is responsible for so many Hollywood horror films as of late that it’s impossible for your concept of horror in the past decade not to be impacted by him.
Just to name a few, we’re talking about “Paranormal Activity” (2007), “Paranormal Activity 2” (2010),” “Paranormal Activity 3” (2011), “Sinister” (2012), “Paranormal Activity 4” (2012), “The Purge” (2013)”, “Insidious: Chapter 2” (2013), “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones” (2014) and now “Oculus”. And 2014 and 2015 already have “The Purge: Anarchy,” “Paranormal Activity 5,” “Amityville” and “Insidious: Chapter 3” en route.
Read Adam Fendelman’s full review of “Oculus”. |
While Blum has no problem releasing films, that doesn’t mean their effectiveness isn’t waning. Perhaps it isn’t his fault that some are hits while others are misses. Rather, it’s more a factor of him oversaturating the market and his own production company that’s so influential in shaping it.
From 2007 through today, the first “Paranormal Activity” and “Sinister” were the most revolutionary and scary. But none of them remember what used to be effective about classic horror films such as “Psycho” (1960), “The Birds” (1963), “The Exorcist” (1973), “Carrie” (1976), “Alien” (1979), “The Shining” (1980) and even more recently “The Ring” (2002).
“The Birds” is a perfect example because it took something simple that people are actually afraid of – birds – and wrapped them inside a terrifying story. Even if you weren’t previously afraid of birds, the increasing viciousness of the real-life plot device instills plenty of fear in you and even makes you think twice about them long after.
Photo credit: John Estes, Lasser Productions