There are a couple different types of horror movies. Some are simply what could be called startlers; movies that surprise you with things that are loud, bright and sudden. Some are gore-fests, celebrations of blood, pain and slow, deliberate injury. The best horror movies are the ones that get under your skin. The ones that have a little gore, sure, and a little surprise here and there, but the true horror, the creeping feeling of doom, comes from the subtle idea that something might really, really be out there, trying to get you. A good horror movie takes part of our safe, secure world and cuts a piece of it out, just for a little while. It makes you check under the bed, or in the closet. It makes you nervous to turn off the light at night, nervous to say “Bloody Mary” in front of a mirror.

“Occulus” has all the ingredients to make a really good horror movie. It is well written, well acted, has a mostly original plot idea and a new take on how to tell a horror story. The problem is that, in spite of all that, it just isn’t that scary.

Intriguing? Sure. Disturbing? Definitely. The fact that the male and female leads are not, as they so often are in American movies, romantically entangled, but rather brother and sister, is definitely a plus. The way the story bounces back and forth between the present day and the past in such a way that you are sometimes uncertain which is real, is very well done. The antagonist is mysterious, lethal, inhuman and just vulnerable enough to give you the feeling that the good guys might win this one.

But the fact is that you probably won’t actually be scared by this movie. It is unsettling, disturbing, but at no point will anyone be glancing nervously at their mirrors, nervous that some shiny-eyed dead woman will be staring out at them. Without the fear, “Occulus” is just a pretty well done movie that, simply put, does not move you. Worth seeing, perhaps, but not in theaters.