Kiefer Sutherland sees something dreadful in the looking glass in the new horror thriller, Mirrors. (Good guess, but it's not middle age.)
A malevolent force is lurking behind the many mirrors in a burned-out department store where our hero is the night watchman, and if he doesn't get the situation under control, the mirror demons will hurt his family.
That entirely logical and credible premise fuels 110 minutes of bloodletting and bad acting, all of it packaged in some very attractive horror wrap.
Filmmaker Alex Aja is a dab hand with the gore, and it's only too bad you've already seen most of the movie's good stuff in the trailers and advertisements.
Sutherland is Ben, a former cop whose career was put on hold after he shot someone. Ben has gone through some bad times and his marriage has ended, but he's struggling to get back on his feet. He still loves his wife (Paula Patton), with whom he has two young children.
For the moment, Ben is living with his sister (Amy Smart). He takes medication to help him stay off booze. He takes the night watchman job because he needs the work, but it's easy to see that he's been living with a lot of stress.
As the movie opens with a sequence about a desperate night watchman slashing his own throat, sort of, it seems fair to assume that bad things will happen to Ben when he becomes night watchman. Since the property he guards was burned long ago in a fire, everything is covered with ash and soot -- except the mirrors.
And because it was a posh department store, burnt mannequins are everywhere, looking like so many frozen people. It's creepy, in the best way. Mirrors may be silly and disjointed, but it's got great atmosphere.
Ben sees disturbing things: People burning in a fire and writhing in pain, for example, but it's only in the mirror, not in real life.
Add to these ghastly images the dark, flooded basement of the building and the sound of a woman screaming in anguish, and by gum, you've got the makings of a horror movie. Well, a plot would have been nice, but that's probably just splitting hairs.
After seeing and hearing lots of frightening stuff, Ben begins to realize that whatever is behind the mirror, it wants something.
Spirits in movies like this usually want an old crime solved, or simple revenge, but the bad spirits behind the mirrors in Ben's world are looking for a specific person -- a former psychiatric patient (the luminous Mary Beth Peil). She holds the key to the mystery of the evil spirits lurking behind all the mirrors. And she'd better hurry up, because the villainous images are now menacing Ben's wife and kids.
Mirrors has a wildly convoluted plot and a dubious ending, as do so many films of the genre. Mirrors also has juvenile jumps -- boo! -- and it goes on far too long.
The movie, which is said to be a remake of the Korean movie, Into The Mirror, suggests that a parallel universe to our own exists just behind the shiny glass wall. And who are we to argue?
(This film is rated 18-A)
More Movie Reviews
