Tag: 2008

For tonight’s October horror review I’m watching the Kiefer Sutherland horror “Mirrors” from 2008. As the name suggests this is a horror revolving around mirrors. It’s not the most original concept as many horrors have made use of mirrors. The mirror scare is a well know trope and going further films like John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness had the devil try and enter our world through a mirror (And this was a two way portal too). Similarly the movie Legend has The Lord of Darkness able to use mirrors as portals and the end of Phantasm has The Tall man attack from within a Mirror.

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This movie itself is loosely based on a Korean horror called “Into the Mirror” (2003). Quite often with these Americanized versions they lose the depth and subtext of the originals and instead offer up fairly dry by the numbers interpretations. This version was directed by Alexandre Aja, with a screenplay from Aja and Gregory Levasseur. Looking into it (As I’ve not seen the Korean movie), it appears Aja threw away the original scripts that were a direct remake and went in his own direction only utilizing a few aspect (And hence why the movie is not called “Into the Mirror”). A bold strategy for sure. I’m not sure it paid off however.

What this version does have going for it is Keither Sutherland, a solid veteran actor with several decent horrors to his name. He plays ex-cop turned security guard “Ben Carson”. He is joined by Paula Patton as his wife and Amy Smart as his sister. The focus is very much on Sutherland though and that is for the best. In brief he was a detective but is on suspension (For reasons that factor into nothing) and has taken a job as a night security guard at an old shut down department store (Which had been gutted by a fire several years previously). While there he begins seeing things in the mirrors and realities something very evil resides behind them. I’ll be hitting spoilers now, so skip to the end if you don’t want spoilers.

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Ben has a lot of elements to his backstory that never really factor in that much to his story. His suspension is talked about briefly and moved on from. His alcoholism is talked about briefly, thrown in as a reason why people don’t believe what he tells them and then forgotten. When he discovers his sister has been murdered Sutherland does his best with the scene, but the plot seems barely bothered by it following this. Indeed the police having found a woman with her jaw physically torn off her while she lay in the bath seem fairly unconcerned.

But that’s far from the only thing that shows the lazy writing behind this. The evil itself is a demon that passed from the woman it had possessed into the mirror world. That demon can kill anyone, anywhere there is a reflective surface and we are told it then feeds on the souls of that person. Yet despite that it is obsessed with returning to the body of the woman it possessed, thereby losing those powers and being vulnerable to being killed. This is especially silly given the woman is very old at this point and you can’t imagine her body would last that long. But the demon really wants out for some reason and the good guys want to give it what it wants apparently just assuming that will be a better situation.

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So nonsensical plot and poor character writing aside, was there anything to this movie? Well there are a few scenes with some cool mirror horror in it. We have some creative visuals, though none of it is really anything truly original (As I mentioned, mirror tropes are common in Horror). The most original elements were when the characters reflections appear, do harm to themselves and that harm impacts the viewer. The problem is the mirror monster is only as powerful as the plot needs it to be at that point. It’s unclear if it likes messing with people first. When Ben has brought the vessel the monster seeks to the building, it continues to vaguely try and murder his family, but in ways that suggest it doesn’t really want to kill them (Especially given what happened to Ben’s sister).

So overall, between the visuals and having Sutherland as lead there was enough to entertain me for the duration. It helps the plot doesn’t drag, it just rarely makes sense and often feels lazy and generic. The truth is it probably could have done with a few more character moments which could have been traded for a few less plot hoops to jump through before we find out what it’s actually all about. Given that conclusion was a disappointment, the journey feels somewhat pointless. This movie just about scrapes a 5/10.