FAQ

When her younger brother Tim (Brenton Thwaites) is released from a mental institution after being incarcerated for killing his father 11 years earlier when he was 10 years old, Kaylie Russell (Karen Gillan) attempts to prove that an antique mirror, called the Lasser Glass, is responsible for the deaths of their parents, Alan (Rory Cochrane) and Marie (Katee Sackhoff), and reminds him of his promise to help her "kill" the mirror. Tim is unsure of whether to believe Kaylie or to believe the doctors who assure him that he has recovered and who warn him to guard against any attempts to draw him back into the delusion. Intermeshed with their attempts to investigate the mirror are fragmented flashbacks to what actually happened to Tim (Garrett Ryan) and Kaylie (Annalise Basso) all those years ago.

Oculus is based on a short screenplay, Oculus: Chapter 3 - The Man with the Plan (2006) (2005) by American filmmakers Mike Flanagan and Jeff Seidman. Flanagan, along with Jeff Howard, adapted the short into the screenplay for the full-length film.

According to Kaylie, its origin is unknown. The trail starts in London in 1754 when it was owned by Phillip Lasser (which is why it became known as the Lasser Glass). Lasser was found a year later burned beyond recognition in his fireplace. From there, it turns up at various times and places, such as 1864 in Atlanta, Georgia, 1904, 1943 in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, 1955, 1965 in San Diego, California, and 1975, until it finally shows up in the Russells' house in 2002. All of these appearances coincided with multiple gruesome deaths.

Flashbacks to the past show how Alan realized what he's done, and pleads with young Tim to help him put himself out of his misery. In the present, the Lasser Glass outwits Kaylie once and for all by showing her a powerful illusion of Marie, arms outstretched for a hug, while simultaneously tormenting Tim with illusions of past victims opening their mouths and the shrill sounds of alarms going off. Kaylie, entranced, goes to Marie and hugs her, while Tim activates the kill switch, only to find that Kaylie's body acted like a shield, and she was killed by the device. The camera recordings show none of the effects Kaylie had hoped for, so it appears that Tim killed Kaylie in cold blood. Tim is dragged to the police car, screaming about how the mirror killed Kaylie, making it look like he's reversed into his previous insanity. A flashback shows young Kaylie begging her brother to join her in a promise to destroy the mirror—but as Tim glances back toward the house before being taken away, he sees the corpses of his parents looking back at him through the window (like he did in the past)—and this time Kaylie is with them.

Probably not, but the mirror's powerful illusions make it impossible for a sentient being to directly attack it; as shown by young Tim and Kaylie thinking they are battering the mirror with golf clubs but, in reality, are only hitting the wall beside it. Apparently, the Lasser Glass can only be harmed by a non-sentient object, as shown when Alan's body falls against the mirror just as he dies, cracking the bottom right corner. This is why Kaylie needed to rig the kill switch device in order to destroy the Lasser Glass—but again, she underestimates the influence that the mirror's illusions have on her and Tim.