Editorials
‘Oculus’ 10 Years Later: Mike Flanagan’s Early Days of Nihilistic Horror
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Oculus and The Fall of the House of Usher.
Of all the horror creators currently working in the business, few have the ability to tear at our heartstrings like Mike Flanagan. Beginning with the 2018 hit miniseries The Haunting of Hill House, the director’s horrific Netflix shows are just as likely to elicit cathartic sobs as hysterical screams. However, with a cast of unlikeable characters and a cavalcade of grisly deaths, Flanagan’s newest series The Fall of the House of Usher may signal a return to the grim horror of his early career. Films like Absentia, Hush, and Ouija: Original of Evil all center harsh and unforgiving stories – a gut punch rather than a bittersweet embrace. Perhaps the cruelest of these is Oculus, the 2013 story of a haunted mirror. Ten years after its premiere, this nihilistic movie still feels like a lean and mean trip to hell more akin to the Usher family’s fate than anything found within the walls of Hill House or Bly Manor.
Inspired by Poe’s eerie short story, Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher follows an ultra-wealthy family of entrepreneurs guided by twins Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and Madeline Usher (Mary McDonnell). Finally facing prosecution for decades of misdeeds, Roderick’s adult children begin to die in gruesome accidents as the wealthy dynasty collapses on itself. Told in parallel timelines, we watch the destruction of this powerful clan alongside flashbacks that slowly reveal the twins’ original corruption. In the last days of their lives, the Usher family reveals their true colors, peeling back the illusion of glamorous power they’ve projected to the world. Part eat-the-rich fantasy and part anti-capitalist satire, Flanagan has a ball with these narcissistic characters who can’t help but tear themselves and their loved ones apart.
More tragedy than black humor, Oculus also features a family struggling with blurred reality. The film takes its title from the Lasser Glass, a sinister mirror capable of shifting perceptions and driving its victims to shocking acts of violence. A decade after the gruesome deaths of their parents, adult siblings Tim (Brenton Thwaites) and Kaylie Russell (Karen Gillan) document a dangerous plan to destroy the expensive antique, but soon find themselves pulled into its sinister circle. As in Usher, their futile attempts to save themselves from an otherworldly force unfold alongside flashbacks to the original horror. We watch the young Russell family self-destruct as the reflective surface wreaks havoc on their collective reality.
In the earlier timeline, father Alan Russell (Rory Cochrane) buys the ornate mirror to hang on the wall of his new home office. No sooner has the young family moved in than the glass begins its campaign of terror. Plants start to die and the family dog comes down with an unknown disease. Alan spends long hours alone under the mirror’s watchful eye, withdrawing from his wife and lashing out at his children. Already insecure about her husband’s affections, Marie (Katee Sackhoff) begins to unravel as well. The Lasser Glass distorts the appearance of her C-section scar and creates the illusion that Alan has been unfaithful. As her paranoia grows, she becomes possessed with the antique’s murderous spirit and attempts to strangle her children. Alan succumbs to its force as well and responds by isolating and torturing his wife. Watching on in horror, young Tim (Garrett Ryan) and Kaylie (Annalise Basso) try to seek help outside the house, but find themselves trapped by the mirror’s powerful influence.
Compared to early scenes of a more or less happy family, this dissolution of parental bonds feels especially vicious. Though Kaylie has planned for every trick the mirror may throw at them, she has not accounted for the weight of reliving this extreme childhood trauma. Walking through their former home, the siblings stumble upon horrific memories and once again find themselves hunted by their own parents as the mirror’s many ghosts emerge. The timelines knit themselves together and it becomes nearly impossible to tell reality from the mirror’s projections. One harrowing scene sees Kaylie defend herself against her mother’s ghost only to discover she’s actually killed her fiancé. Unable to tell perception from fact, she must look through the lens of a phone camera to determine whether his bleeding body is actually real. Flanagan builds an unnerving dual reality and the audience finds themselves just as lost as the Russell children.
Flanagan uses the mirror’s unnerving tactics to flex his impressive gore muscles. The director has always had a flair for the gruesome and an uncanny knack for striking at our most vulnerable points. Later films would see him destroy a series of onscreen hands including a nearly unwatchable degloving scene in his 2017 film Gerald’s Game. In Oculus, Flanagan zeroes in on the sensitive skin inside our mouths with characters biting into light bulbs and ceramic plates while blood drips from their lacerated lips. Not only do we begin the story with a gun to a child’s head, we also see brutal crime scene photos and hear the details of grisly deaths left in the mirror’s wake. Kaylie tells us that one victim systematically used a hammer to smash all the bones in her body and another drowned her children believing she was tucking them into bed. Foreshadowing the blood-soaked Usher, Flanagan holds nothing back and twists the knives in his characters’ backs.
Compared to his later more sentimental horror, Oculus presents a particularly nihilistic conclusion. Young Tim must save his sister by shooting his father in the chest. In a brief moment of clarity, Alan encourages his son to pull the trigger and free him from the mirror’s grasp. In the present day timeline, Flanagan plays with our emotions by allowing us to hope that the adult siblings might find a way to defeat the mirror. But this is not to be. In an especially devious twist, Kaylie sees a vision of her mother calling to her from the other side of the glass. Meanwhile, Tim remembers the moment of his father’s death and flips the “kill switch” designed to destroy the mirror. He releases a massive anchor mounted in the ceiling only to find his sister standing between the blade and the glass. Once again Tim is responsible for killing another member of his family.
As the timelines merge together, Flanagan hits us with this dual devastation. Both versions of Tim are dragged away by police raving about the sinister mirror. All his hard work in therapy has been for nothing and he is likely headed back to psychiatric care. Kaylie watches her brother go in both timelines, though the endings to her stories dramatically differ. Young Kaylie will be left alone to fend for herself while adult Kaylie has become forever trapped inside the mirror’s world. The only consolation is that she joins her parents in this alternate dimension, but all three will be doomed to haunt the glass’s next home.
It’s a particularly nihilistic conclusion for a creator who specializes in uplifting horror. Flanagan excels in creating stylish, but devastating portraits of death. However, more often than not his stories end on an uplifting note. The Haunting of Hill House gives us “confetti,” a beautiful metaphor for the experience of life while The Haunting of Bly Manor closes with a meditation on lost love over Sheryl Crow’s gorgeous “I Shall Believe.” Even Midnight Mass concludes with the citizens of Crockett Island singing together as the sun rises. But Oculus ends with a family destroyed. The Lasser Glass has shattered their bonds of love and left them to suffer amidst the broken glass.
Flanagan flirts with this nihilism in Usher, though he still manages to wring out a bit of sympathy for the unlikeable family. Roderick and his line may die as a result of their own hubris, but the results of their greed will echo through the ages. Not only will the pain they’ve caused outlive them, but another greedy family will likely take their place. Tim and Roderick both watch their families crumble knowing their attempts to save them have been futile. One has brought this misery on himself while the other is an innocent victim, but both stories paint a picture of a cold world and the dangerous contrast between perception and reality. Though they differ in tone, the brutality of Oculus and The Fall of the House of Usher show that sometimes we can’t find our way out of the darkness and some families are simply destined to fall.
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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