Before Mike Flanagan raised heart rates with Dr. Sleep, he directed Oculus (2103), the next reflective horror in our catoptrophobia competition. Would our subject be able to look at herself in a mirror after witnessing what critics have called, ‘the first spine tingling chapter in a new franchise for discerning horror fans.’
SYNOPSIS:
A woman tries to exonerate her brother, who was convicted of murder, by proving that the crime was committed by a supernatural phenomenon.
Test Subject: Debby
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Fears: Strangers / Public Speaking
Resting HR: 62-65bpm
Walking HR: 80-85bpm
ANALYSIS:
Oculus (2013) is a story told in two different times. As you can see by the peaks and valleys in our scale, there was a safe world in the present time and a flashback world where most of the scares resided. That is, until the two worlds combined for an intense heart racing finale an hour into the movie. We monitored a few jump scares but this film was a slowly unraveling mystery that built tremendous anxiety over the course of the runtime. We recorded a beautiful climb of extreme tension which culminated in a peak 98bpm.
CONCLUSION:
Oculus (2013) is a supernatural family drama which established an incredible sense of unease throughout. With only one location used for the majority of scenes our subject admitted to feeling trapped. This sense of dread outweighed the gore and created the slow increase in our subject’s numbers. It was able to hold them at a consistently high level. The combination of scares and apprehension resulted in a final heart rate average above Hell House LLC on our leaderboard. In fact, had director Mike Flanagan agreed to film Oculus in the “found footage” genre (like Hell House LLC)), a number of studios would have backed it as early as 2006. However Flanagan refused.
Oculus: Burns an average of 247 Calories
Beat Saber on Oculus Quest (Five Songs): Burns an average of 120 Calories
How many Fear Calories did you burn watching Oculus? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook
