OMG Horror.com

Over the last five years, French filmmaker Alexandre Aja has steadily carved a respectable name in the rarified air of upper echelon horror. Haute Tension, his 2003 debut feature at just 25 years old no doubt turned industry heads, and more or less resulted in a one way ticket to Hollywood. In 2006, Aja re-imagined Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes to considerable success, both among the box office and the minds of ardent, blood-parched fans. Now, with his biggest budget to date, Aja gives us a glimpse at Mirrors, a ruefully stultified remake of the South Korean flick Into the Mirror. In fact, Mirrors is so weak that if you put the entire female cast of Vicky Christina Barcelona in front of it, the glass would still crack to smithereens.

New York. We open in a dark ashen building with a frightened security guard literally running for his life. After retreating to a storage room he deems safe, a line of lockers burst open and surround the man with mirrors, some large, some cracked. The man quivers, pleading for his survival, but it's clear the reflected images of him are not normal. Some mumbling ensues and soon the dude slashes his own throat, a hydrant of blood gushes all over the frame. Title and credits.

We meet Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland), a pill addled ex-detective who lives in a constant state of compunction after accidentally shooting his partner a few years back. He's hit rock bottom, quit the booze, but still lives at his younger sister Angela's place (Amy Smart). Determined to rebound, Carson agrees to take a job as a night watchman at The Mayflower, a giant burned-out department store that resembles a freakin' 19th century Victorian Castle. We connect the dots and realize it's the same place homeboy in the opener was gashed at. Amid the rubble, inside of the Mayflower is brimmed with large pristine mirrors - the place dark with high ceilings and slanted light that seems modeled after Keifer's cave in The Lost Boys. The first night on watch, Carson begins to hear and see weird things. It turns out to be pigeons.

As Ben pops more pills and tries to patch his life together, we meet his wife Amy (Paula Patton, equipped with more bust than Canton Ohio) and two kids Daisy (Erica Gluck) and Michael (Cameron Boyce). Amy seems none too sympathetic, leering askance at Ben's tired excuses and paranoid delusions. What delusions, you may ask? Well, at the Mayflower, eerily inexplicable stuff increasingly occurs - Carson starts to notice a strange phenomenon where the mirrors reflect an evil alternate universe that can't be detected in the realm of 'reality.' It gets to the point where Carson sees a fire in a mirror and starts to feel as if he himself is trapped in the flames - he does a stop drop and roll - only to snap out of it and without a hint of irony, pop another pill.

Instead of just quitting the job, Carson vets the history of the place; a bad move considering he's now welcoming the evil into his personal life outside the Mayflower. The malefic force (whatever it is) is now targeting his family. It's up to Carson to not only suss the culprit of such heinous acts, but to save his family from such. He fails partially, as Angela savagely rips her own jaw apart in what results in a literal blood bath. Investigation lands Carson in a Pennsylvania monastery in some ridiculous subplot involving an ex-mental patient in the hospital that used to be in the same place the Mayflower resides. A final showdown, also reminiscent of Kiefer's antler-induced demise in TLB, neither convinces nor satisfies in any way possible - and really only serves to set up a shamefully venal sequel opportunity for a studio-head who obviously wants to do away with cinema as we know it.

Wow, so much to get to here. First off, you haven't been able to tell - this is Aja's most paltry effort to date. What we have here is a French filmmaker taking South Korean source material and spinning it largely for an American (international) audience - and the result is just that - a lost in translation muddle that, despite being R-rated, feels like just another boiler plate Hollywood j-horror rehash. The original film Into the Mirror is a deliberately paced ghost thriller, this is a flared up gore outing more intent on hitting an audience with abrupt pseudo-scares and jump-fright than slowly building a sense of true terror. Actually, the only thing scary about this flick is its runtime - at 110 minutes you wonder why given its lack of intrigue, Aja wouldn't have whittled the script down to a more efficient form. If it was an effective slow burner like its predecessor, I'd have no qualms.

Never once during the whole film did I feel enraptured or immersed in the story. I kept feeling like I was watching a movie, partly because of the way Aja was intent to shoot the film in a barrage of 'mirror' imaging - where reflections in everything from a TV, window, alarm clock, marble table, pool of water etc. - while technically impressive in terms of blocking and camera set-up; ultimately distracted much of the story itself (not a bad thing I suppose given how vapid the story is). And the CGI work is absolutely horrendous here; CG fires, wounds, lames ass ghosts no more frightening than a Disneyland Haunted House mirror-hall. Really, Aja would have been much better suited using old fashion make-up/special FX work. The acting is deplorable, the dialogue even worse, Sutherland stuck in the hysterics of Jack Bauer monotone. The plot is as plausible as a bad Scooby-Doo entry; the gore too minimal and tasteless to scintillate; the resolution laughable; loyalty to the original film non-existent. It's quite a shame considering Aja's track record and how genuinely cool the premise is. Really though, regardless of who's reflection, Mirrors remains ugly as hell!

Terror Rating: 1 out of 5
Originality: 2 out of 5
Level of Gore: 3 out of 5
Overall Rating: 2 out of 5

Recommendations: Into the Mirror (2003), Shutter (2004)

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