Genre: Horror
Director: Alexandre Aja
Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton,
Language: English
Runtime: 110 min.
Dull horror movies fall in a range of categories: movies that have got a good setup but don't make use of it, movies that have got nothing much other than gore, movies where nothing happens, etc. To this list, Asian horror remakes now add a new category: movies that nobody is clear what they're about. Alexandre Aja's trial at supernatural horror falls into this category.
Based on a 2003 Korean film "Into the Mirror," Mirrors reflects the life of Carson. Carson is a troubled ex-cop recovering from alcoholism. His wife and kids stay away from him and he desperately needs a job to reunite with his family. So he joins as a night watchman, a local shopping complex that was burnt down in a recent fire accident. On his first day he notices a peculiar thing - among the scorched remains of the complex, the mirrors alone look completely unscathed. The alternate shift in-charge tells him that the previous watchman, whom Carson has come to replace, was obsessive in keeping them clean. The intrigued Carson soon starts noticing strange things whenever there's a mirror nearby. He gets more and more involved with the mirrors to the extent of putting his family in a grave danger.
The movie starts promisingly. We see a man gruesomely killed by his own reflection in a mirror. Titles starts appearing against a backdrop of reflected skyscrapers, accompanied by Javier Navarate's excellent title music (the starting resembles John Carpenter's classic theme music of Halloween). But the promise starts fading soon. A familiar bell rings somewhere inside our head when we meet Carson as a troubled cop. Why cop protagonists of horror movies are always troubled? So that we can fairly guess what will happen to them? Soon come the mandatory scenes of Carson exploring the dark complex with a torch. Feeble lighting, grungy set design and ambient music come together in these scenes to form a decent build up of atmosphere and some mystery. While the atmosphere fades out quickly the mystery remains. For a while the movie plays out as an investigative procedural and at last everything gets resolved. The only problem is we are not sure what is getting resolved and what the resolution is.
The movie fails simply because it has got the basics wrong: the script doesn't stick to a single supernatural theme nor does it create the ground rules that are indispensable to follow the plot and to make sense of it. The happenings are so unrelated that we are left with no clue of what to make out of the ending.
For gore lovers, there is one standout sequence involving a bathtub and mandible. It would have been a little better if not for the conspicuous special effects. Carson's family and his bonding with them are not emotionally well developed, which results in an impression of too much time getting wasted in his mundane and drab interaction with his family. In addition, there is no shortage of clichés. Sample: When Carson shoots a mirror in the complex the bullet holes in them disappear, but when he shoots a mirror in front of his wife to make her believe the supernaturalism of mirrors, we know we've seen the result countless times. No idea when moviemakers are going to grow tired of this cliché but we are long dead tired.
The script doesn't allow much in the area of characterization. Keifer Sutherland has nothing much to do other than roam around with a torch and look anxious but he sufficiently fills in the troubled cop template.
Mirrors is a half baked attempt at horror that loses track halfway and never finds it. In effect, it's just another addition to a genre that's already oversaturated with junk.
Director: Alexandre Aja
Cast: Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton,
Language: English
Runtime: 110 min.
Dull horror movies fall in a range of categories: movies that have got a good setup but don't make use of it, movies that have got nothing much other than gore, movies where nothing happens, etc. To this list, Asian horror remakes now add a new category: movies that nobody is clear what they're about. Alexandre Aja's trial at supernatural horror falls into this category.
Based on a 2003 Korean film "Into the Mirror," Mirrors reflects the life of Carson. Carson is a troubled ex-cop recovering from alcoholism. His wife and kids stay away from him and he desperately needs a job to reunite with his family. So he joins as a night watchman, a local shopping complex that was burnt down in a recent fire accident. On his first day he notices a peculiar thing - among the scorched remains of the complex, the mirrors alone look completely unscathed. The alternate shift in-charge tells him that the previous watchman, whom Carson has come to replace, was obsessive in keeping them clean. The intrigued Carson soon starts noticing strange things whenever there's a mirror nearby. He gets more and more involved with the mirrors to the extent of putting his family in a grave danger.
The movie starts promisingly. We see a man gruesomely killed by his own reflection in a mirror. Titles starts appearing against a backdrop of reflected skyscrapers, accompanied by Javier Navarate's excellent title music (the starting resembles John Carpenter's classic theme music of Halloween). But the promise starts fading soon. A familiar bell rings somewhere inside our head when we meet Carson as a troubled cop. Why cop protagonists of horror movies are always troubled? So that we can fairly guess what will happen to them? Soon come the mandatory scenes of Carson exploring the dark complex with a torch. Feeble lighting, grungy set design and ambient music come together in these scenes to form a decent build up of atmosphere and some mystery. While the atmosphere fades out quickly the mystery remains. For a while the movie plays out as an investigative procedural and at last everything gets resolved. The only problem is we are not sure what is getting resolved and what the resolution is.
The movie fails simply because it has got the basics wrong: the script doesn't stick to a single supernatural theme nor does it create the ground rules that are indispensable to follow the plot and to make sense of it. The happenings are so unrelated that we are left with no clue of what to make out of the ending.
For gore lovers, there is one standout sequence involving a bathtub and mandible. It would have been a little better if not for the conspicuous special effects. Carson's family and his bonding with them are not emotionally well developed, which results in an impression of too much time getting wasted in his mundane and drab interaction with his family. In addition, there is no shortage of clichés. Sample: When Carson shoots a mirror in the complex the bullet holes in them disappear, but when he shoots a mirror in front of his wife to make her believe the supernaturalism of mirrors, we know we've seen the result countless times. No idea when moviemakers are going to grow tired of this cliché but we are long dead tired.
The script doesn't allow much in the area of characterization. Keifer Sutherland has nothing much to do other than roam around with a torch and look anxious but he sufficiently fills in the troubled cop template.
Mirrors is a half baked attempt at horror that loses track halfway and never finds it. In effect, it's just another addition to a genre that's already oversaturated with junk.
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