The Oracle



A young couple moves into a new apartment after the previous tenant mysteriously disappeared. While talking to the building’s supervisor the wife, Jennifer, stumbles upon some of the old tenants belongings. In particular, she seems drawn to an unusual planchette, a stone hand meant to hold a feather so that it can write messages from the dead. Fascinated by the device, the supervisor gives it to Jennifer and she gleefully takes it upstairs. She thinks it’s going to be nothing more than an interesting party game for the upcoming holiday season, or at the very least a very curious conversation piece. But she gets more than she bargained for when a spirit really does contact her through the planchette, and becomes obnoxiously persistent about having her help it solve its murder… regardless of how dangerous it may be or the destruction it could do to Jennifer’s personal life.


And her vocal cords. With all the screaming she does I’m genuinely concerned for her.

Sometimes it becomes a struggle to find something horror-related to watch in between Christmas and New Years. But this year I lucked out, because a couple of months ago film miasma pointed me in the direction of The Oracle, which conveniently takes place during both Christmas and  New Years. Perfect! Thanks, friend!

Anyway, The Oracle was shot entirely in New York City, and was directed by Roberta Findlay who, as far as I can tell, was primarily only known for working on various adult entertainment films up to this point. Which, honestly, probably explains why the film isn’t all that great. But, I will give Findlay credit, Oracle does still end up being a pretty entertaining movie. It’s just that it’s generally pretty entertaining for mostly the wrong reasons.


Kinda looks like one of the Haunted Mansion ghosts escaped. Does that mean there are 998 ghosts there now?

I’ll admit, despite its flaws, I do like the general story behind the film. You’ve got this innocent third party pulled into a mystery by supernatural forces, the people behind the mystery are after her, and because there are ghosts involved everyone thinks she’s completely crazy. Some of the plot points may not be a 100% original or anything, but it’s still unique enough, and I do tend to enjoy a lot of Ouija board themed supernatural films, so… take from that what you will. Granted, Oracle isn’t technically a Ouija board film, because Findlay couldn’t get permission to use the brand named Ouija board from Parker Brothers. So instead Findlay had to come up with the weird, spirit hand…thing as a replacement. And I’m still not 100% sure if it’s supposed to be made of stone or some kind of actual mummified hand, but either way it makes for a very creepy aesthetic, even though it’s not your typical planchette.


Note: traditionally, a planchette is the triangular piece that slides around and spells out words on the board.

The problem really arises with, you know, everything else in the film. In short, the movie is just a cheap, cheesy mess. The film’s otherwise decent concept is hampered by a variety of culprits, like an unfocused narrative, a lot of unlikable characters, questionable dialogue, jumpy editing, cheesy blood effect (I think the face melting scene was cool though…), a weird synth score, poor framing, and of course generally bad acting (though I did feel lead Caroline Powers was pretty decent, even though I suspect that over half of her lines in the script boiled down to little more than “terrified screaming”). So basically nothing out of the ordinary from your typical Z-grade horror schlock.


No! Not the shower! I already have enough horror-related phobia regarding the shower!


Still like the face-melty scene though.

What helps keep the movie entertaining, however, are the oddities, and there are a lot of them. You’ve got a female killer who dresses like a man, hates women, and apparently likes to eat the bones of all her meat products. The building superintendent (?) walks around with his shirt half unbuttoned at all times. Every time someone is seen running it looks like they’ve never had to do it in their life. Nobody seems to be able to hear a woman screaming her bloody head off from the next room…Unless of course it’s the bad guys, and said woman is located several rooms away with multiple concrete walls between them, and on the other side of a warehouse.


Oh sure, NOW someone finds me!

But my favorite part about the movie is how the “ghost” is implemented, because the film didn’t seem to have the foggiest idea of what to do in that regard. Or at least they couldn’t narrow down what they wanted to do, and just went with what looked “coolest”, I guess. So in some scenes you get a rubbery, occasionally green ghost that superimposed next to the characters after the fact. Or maybe it’s a really obnoxious wind that tries to redecorate Jennifer’s apartment. In others it manifests as tiny, rubbery squid-like things that crawl out of the planchette box. Or in the worst case scenario it turns into a full-fledged demon who pops out of trash shoots and rips the heads off asshole husbands. There’s just no consistency to this thing. Which is weird, yeah, but also kind of fun, because you never know what the hell the movie is going to throw at you next. Like, is the ghost going to just annoy the next person it comes across, or just outright kill them? Who knows! It’s a mystery, and that’s kinda half the fun.


Can’t ya see I’m trying to tell ya I love ya!


Taken out by a dog’s chew toy. How embarrassing.


JUST TURN DOWN YOUR AIR CONDITIONER!


Also, I’m still not sure what happened to Jennifer’s therapist, but I think a demon dog ate her in an elevator. Jury’s still out on what happened to that chick.

So while The Oracle may not necessarily be a “good” movie, it was still a pretty fun movie, if for no other reason than because of how ridiculous some parts of it were. The movie isn’t going to be for everyone, especially if you like more serious horror films. But for everyone else there should be enough weirdness to be entertaining, and at only a little more than 90 minutes it moves pretty fast, so there aren’t too many “boring” parts. Really, my greatest complaint was that I was a little annoyed at how irritatingly unsympathetic most of the characters were, especially the husband. But the movie instinctively understood my frustrations with that guy and gave him a proper goofy, gory sendoff, so all is forgiven. So if you’re a fan of weird, cheap, slightly sleazy, and cheesy 80’s horror, and need something easy to watch over the holidays, then The Oracle could be for you.

The Oracle is available on a variety of streaming services.

The Oracle is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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