Shawn's Mirrors Review

2008 Movie #92 - Mirrors

You know that scene in many movies where someone is looking in a mirror, brushing their teeth or whatever, then the mirror and the person leaves the frame for a second, only to have something creepy in the mirror when they look back in it? This is the feature length version of that scene. That must happen at least 6 times in this movie. That kind of makes it sound like I didn't like the movie, however not the case. Read on.

Anyone who reads this blog even semi-regularily should know that I'm a huge supporter of R rated horror movies. This year we've been lucky to see a couple of good ones and although I think I'm going to be in the vast minority on this one, I think Mirrors can be added to the list of solid R rated horror.

It doesn't take long for them to take advantage of this rating either. It's probably barely 2 minutes before you are treated to your first intense gore sequence. However that's nothing compared to one later on in the movie. It's really too bad that scene has already made it's way onto the internet in many forms because if you didn't know it was coming, it was blow your shit away. It's hands down one of the goriest/coolest/most insane deaths I've seen in a horror movie in probably ever. You know the mirrors are fucking evil when they could easily have someone hang themselves or something, but instead decide to go this route.

So the gore is good, which is nice. The story itself is actually pretty decent too. I kept reading reviews saying that the movie was boring which I don't understand. I was never once bored throughout this movie. I was genuinely interested in what was going on. Of course the payoff wasn't as good as I was expecting but the trip there is pretty interesting. It's not a great story, but it's certainly enough to keep your interest.

The scares are decent, with maybe a little too much emphasis on the sudden loud noise jump scares. There are some genuinely creepy moments though, mostly when Kiefer is walking through the haunted department store. Although while we're on that, after he saw creepy shit in there the first time, why would he ever ever go back inside? Once your reflection is doing something different than you, thats when you go "fuck this" and get a job at the fucking post office or something.

Acting is decent, but make no mistake about it, Kiefer is simply playing Jack Bauer. You throw some ticking clocks in this and it could have been a season of 24. He pulls gun on people (and yes, several mirrors as well) and yells, almost every scene and piece of dialogue ends with him yelling "shit!" or "damn it!" and it just feels like that same character. It's almost too bad because the man can act, but it's starting to look like he might be doomed to this character for the rest of his career.

Overall, I have to recommend this one. I went in with very low expectations which may have helped, but I liked this one a lot. One of the bigger surprises of the summer for sure. My friend who I watched it with was telling me afterwards about the amount of subtext and details in the movie. I don't know about all that but someone ripped their own face off, so this movie has something for everybody.

*** 1/2 / 5