Blu-Ray Review: Horror of ‘Mirrors’ Shatters on Closer Inspection

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CHICAGO – “Mirrors” is a so-so horror movie helped a bit by its interesting director’s visual flourishes and a better-than-average ensemble but ultimately shattered by an incoherent screenplay and dialogue that is more likely to produce laughter than shivers.

Kiefer Sutherland has not yet successfully made the transition back from TV star to movie star with a series of roles in his “24” years that could be deemed questionable at best. “Phone Booth,” “Taking Lives,” “The Sentinel,” and, now, “Mirrors”. It’s not a stellar string of decisions.

In one of the featurettes on the Blu-Ray version of his latest misfire, “Reflections: The Making of Mirrors,” it is implied that Sutherland discussed doing the project with director Alexandre Aja before reading a script. He might want to change that part of his role-picking process.

Mirrors was released by Fox Home Video on January 13th, 2009.
Photo credit: Toni Salabasev

In “Mirrors,” Sutherland plays Ben Carson, a disgraced police officer working as a security guard at the creepiest old department store in the world. It turns out that the store used to be a psychiatric hospital and something evil found its way into the mirrors in the building. Reflections move on their own and can sometimes even cause damage to their counterpart on the other side. Ben’s estranged wife (Paula Patton) thinks he might be going crazy and his sister (Amy Smart) can’t help the night watchman out of his terrifying situation.

Mirrors is released by Fox Brothers Home Video on January 13th, 2009. Photo credit: Fox Home Video

The first half of “Mirrors” works because Aja, the talented but controversial director of “Haute Tension” and the remake of “The Hills Have Eyes,” is allowed to at least be a little atmospheric. But when he has to focus on the plot and try to amplify the tension dramatically, you can literally see “Mirrors” fall apart. At around the hour mark, after several gory deaths and some interesting tension as to whether or not Ben might actually just be going nuts and not be haunted, “Mirrors” should be wrapping itself up, but it has almost an hour to go.

That last hour of “Mirrors” is essentially a mystery movie with Ben trying to unravel exactly what the force is behind the haunting and it’s a mess on every level. The dialogue isn’t exactly strong in the first half of the film, but it’s easier to ignore when Kiefer isn’t yelling things like “Just let me cover these damn mirrors!!” in his best Jack Bauer growl. And the final scenes of “Mirrors” are laughingly, horrendously bad.

Horror fans are notoriously forgiving of their genre, so let me speak to just them for a minute. Anyone not a horror fans should ignore “Mirrors” but if you liked “High Tension” and can forgive a script that collapses for a movie that is visually intriguing for at least sixty minutes, it’s worth a rental. It’s not nearly as bad as it could have been. Aja continues to show that he’s interesting talent waiting for the right English-language script. Maybe it will be “Piranha 3D,” which he’s currently filming. Probably not.

As for the Blu-Ray presentation of “Mirrors,” it looks great, but I’m not sure that it should. Now you too can see someone rip off the lower half of their face in stunning, unrated 1080p. Lucky you. Even this aficionado of twisted horror movies was a little disturbed by the impact of HD on gore.

Mirrors is released by Fox Brothers Home Video on January 13th, 2009. Photo credit: Toni Salabasev

Maybe it’s because I grew up with a steady diet of ’80s slasher pics on VHS, but there’s something not quite right about horror on Blu-Ray for me. There’s something about scary movies that should be dirty and hard-to-see. I’m not sure anyone needs the “detail”. And the Blu-Ray video transfer is far from perfect. There’s a surprising amount of grain in some of the darker scenes. For one of the very few times since the start of the next-gen format, I wondered if a movie might look better on normal DVD when the visual noise in the darker scenes would have been consistent through out and I wouldn’t have to see the detachment of a jaw in HD.

The special features on “Mirrors” are surprisingly complete. The aforementioned documentary about the making of the film runs almost an hour long and there are deleted scenes, another featurette, Anna Esseker hospital footage, and a commentary by Aja and Levasseur. Fans can even access a storyboard-to-scene comparison while the movie plays. It’s a very impressive collection and all fans can ask for with a movie like “Mirrors”.

The Blu-Ray release of “Mirrors” also includes a digital copy of the film along with the theatrical and unrated cuts of the movie. As for the most high-profile feature advertised on the front of the case, the alternate ending, there are actually two of them included. One is advertised as an actual alternate ending but the final deleted scenes would have changed the end of the movie as well if they had been included.

It’s interesting to look at the three endings because the one chosen for the actual cut was executed the most expertly and was correctly chosen for the final version but the other two arguably had more potential on paper. They might have been effective but they weren’t quite pulled off when they were shot. Kind of like “Mirrors” itself.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com