Review of Mirrors

Mirrors, directed by Alexandre Aja and written by Aja & Gregory Levasseur is a film designed to play on the fears of the individual. Aja directed Piranha (2010) and The Hills Have Eyes (2006) to name a few of his other more popular horror flicks, and I can say without hesitation that they’re all of equal caliber. They may have a few good scenes here and there, but for the most part, it was a giant pile of “meh.”

To summarize, an ex-cop desperate to gain back the love and trust of his family takes a job at a burned down New York department store, finds out the secrets of the haunted mirrors, and ends up slightly destroying what he was trying to repair.

The ghosts of the schizophrenic demons of a little girl, Anna Esseker (Mary Beth Peil) are trapped in the mirrors and are trapping the reflections of those who peer in to the glass. As a child Anna was sent to be cured of her disease by facing herself: sitting strapped to a chair in a room full of mirrors, forced to confront her reflection and save herself. While she claims to never have been cured, the things responsible for enslaving her fled to the mirrors that are still claiming lives. If it’ sounds corny, it’s because it really kinda is.

The bloody scenes are bloody indeed. The emotional build up to the scenes is what was really lacking. I bit my knuckle and squinted my eyes almost closed when the gore hit, which is why I think it was well done, but I had absolutely no emotional investment in the characters, even the children that were involved. I treated this film as torture porn: PATIENTLY waiting for the next kill.

The one thing I did appreciate about this movie (other than the gore, of course) was the ending. It concluded on an almost classy note, and I thoroughly enjoyed maybe the last, oh, two to three minutes of the movies. I thought the handprints on the glass (I won’t explain this for those of you who haven’t seen the film, but do intend to) carrying over to the conclusion was clever and well executed. I’m quite glad that even though this movie was trash, it didn’t leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.

My official rating: **