Why Mike Flanagan's 'Oculus' Is Better Than 'The Haunting of Hill House'

Mike Flanagan’s Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House is often celebrated, but his 2013 thriller Oculus is a strong, quieter example of his work and deserves attention. Before moving into high-profile streaming shows, Flanagan wrote and directed a handful of films, including Oculus and the 2016 thriller Hush.

Oculus follows siblings Tim (Brenton Thwaites) and Kaylie Russell (Karen Gillan), whose parents Alan (Rory Cochrane) and Marie (Katee Sackhoff) died in a terrible incident when they were children. Tim is convinced their father murdered their mother, while Kaylie insists an evil mirror called the Lasser Glass is to blame.

Nightmares and unsettling set pieces — from Kaylie biting into a lightbulb to a scene where she believes she has killed her fiancé Michael (James Lafferty) and then answers his phone — continually blur memory and reality. The Haunting of Hill House earns praise for its split timelines and the way the Crain siblings find shared catharsis, but Oculus examines trauma through a different lens.

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