Oculus

Tim Russell is released from psychiatric care at 21, having spent a decade being treated for the belief that a supernatural mirror killed his parents when he was ten. His sister Kaylie has spent the same decade tracking down the Lasser Glass — an antique mirror documented across centuries of deaths — and has rigged an elaborate fail-safe: cameras to document, a kill switch anchor timed to fall and destroy the mirror, plants and thermometers to establish an objective baseline. The film crosscuts between the present investigation and the siblings' childhood: their father grew obsessed with the mirror, their mother was transformed and imprisoned, and ten-year-old Tim shot his father in self-defense while Kaylie watched. In the present, the mirror begins distorting perception — they bite into a lightbulb thinking it is an apple, fail to notice the plant shriveling, watch the kill switch anchor swing and miss. They can no longer trust their senses. The mirror has manufactured every countermeasure Kaylie built. In the climax, it manipulates Kaylie into stepping into the anchor's path herself — she is killed. Tim is arrested again. The mirror survives.