10 Horror Movie Deaths That Could Have Been Avoided

8. Kaylie – Oculus

An often overlooked gem in the horror genre, this Karen Gillan movie provides a series of slow burning jump scares alongside an actual (debatably) good plot and a unique storytelling gimmick.

Following the traumatic childhood and subsequent adult lives of Tim and Kaylie, we learn that weeks after purchasing an old and unusual mirror for his new office, their father Alan and mother Marie began to experience unsettling visions that appear to play on pre-existing paranoia.

Eventually it’s revealed that in fact, yes, it is a haunted mirror, but surprisingly, no, they aren’t going to tell us how or why. At this moment all we need to know is that it has caused a series of brutal murders by ‘possessing’ an occupant of its household.

After murdering his wife, Alan is subsequently killed by his ten-year-old son Tim, who is then incarcerated until he turns 18, at which point is released from a psychiatric hospital. Reuniting with his sister who has tracked down the Oculus mirror, they agree to destroy the mirror together.

However, we soon find that the mirror has other plans and causes the siblings to see similar visions to those that plagued their parents' years earlier. This causes Tim to activate one of the traps intended to destroy the mirror, but instead results in him killing his sister, as once again the mirror has cast an illusion that plays out in its own favour.

Had the siblings attempted to simply destroy the mirror immediately upon regaining access to it instead of trying to coax a confession from it, the two could have survived.