Review of the Reviews

I decided to write a review of the movie Oculus that I had recently seen, and also review some of the critic's thoughts on the film. One of these critics is Richard Roeper who gave the film an A rating on his website http://www.richardroeper.com/reviews/oculus.aspx . His A rating was mainly focused on the excellent young actors in this movie, and its plot. He argued how he liked the plot, due to how the director jumped through time from 11 years ago to the present. This made the viewer sometimes unsure of real and imagination, which made the viewing experience to be interesting.

The second critic is James Berardinelli who rated the film fresh on http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/oculus/#contentReviews . He thought the plot was unusual because, it didn’t have many scare moments in the film, but was more of a puzzle. He did not like the acting, which he thought needed a bigger name actor in the film. Berardinelli mentioned how he thought the horror genre is becoming more and more predictable and he thinks that Oculus is a step in the right direction away from these types of horror films. He thought what the movie lacked in scaring the viewer, it made up with the suspense it created. 

Berardinelli had stated, "For a horror movie, Oculus is surprisingly lean on the scares. It's more interested in playing tricks with perception and bending reality. " I agree with this quote, throughout this film the characters continuously see things that are not there, or don't see things that are there. The haunted mirror distorts their reality and can even control the phone calls the characters receive. However, I do not agree with his opinion that the film is lean on scares. This film creates a suspense before some of the scare moments, which make them more effective, and some of those moments were very daunting and shocking, while others would make you jump up in fear. 

Meanwhile Roeper thought the film took a, "High level of confidence to make," due to the fact the plot consists of a haunted mirror. Roeper loved the directing and acting that took place in this film. He also discussed key points of the plot in great detail in his review.  I agree that the actors in this film were spectacular and the directing was phenomenal. They did a great job in portraying two timelines at the same time during the movie.

I thought that Roeper's review was much more convincing than Berardinelli's. I thought that his review 

had more of a voice than Berardinelli's review, mainly because it was a lot easier to read. I think that what wins over a viewer to the critic’s argument is if that critic had a similar stance on the movie that you did. If the viewer saw a movie that he enjoyed and he and a particular critic agreed on certain points, he would most likely side with that critic. I agreed more with Roepers stance on the movie than Berardinellis due to I had more ideas on the film in common with Roeper than Berardinelli.

I would absolutely have to include a plot summary, and other things I enjoyed about the film. I would need to be honest and discuss things I did not like very much while also not being too negative about a movie that I had enjoyed. I would leave out spoilers so that the viewer could still have the same viewing experience that I had. I would try to have a voice in my review to keep the reader interested. However I would not be too opinionistic because the reader might disagree with some of my points making them not like my review.