MIRRORS

US, 2008, 110 minutes, Colour.
Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patten, Cameron Boyce, Amy Smart, Mary Beth Peil, John Shrapnel, Jason Flemyng, Julian Glover.
Directed by Alexandre Aja.

Mirrors, for most audiences, will prove to be a genuinely scary movie. This is quite an accomplished film, more a terror film rather than just what we think of as horror even though there is some explanation given that involves ghosts and some demonic powers. It is based on an effective Korean ghost film, Into the Mirror, which worked well because of Asian beliefs in spirits. Mirrors takes the basic themes but relocates them to New York, this time the hulk of a fashionable department store that was burnt out (the original used a store that was operating) but was built on the site of an closed down psychiatric hospital.

While there is a death before the credits, Mirrors generally keeps the terror with atmosphere, especially with the huge mirrors in the darkened store, though there are a couple of scenes and a climax that are blood-drenched.

Keifer Sutherland plays a New York detective who has shot someone in the line of duty and is on suspension but has drinking and nerve problems which have a destructive effect on his wife and children. He becomes the night guard of the store and begins to experience weird sounds and sights. Is it his mind or is it happening in reality?

The film works on the premiss that our mirror images can confront us and can wreak violence - and this extends to several characters in the film.

The production is good to look at, the tone set during reverse images of the New York skyline during the credits, with the facade and the interiors of the store. The plot eventually takes the detective to Pennsylvania, an abbey and a nun who has the power to stop the evil.

French director Alexandre Aja made the effective remake of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes. Here he has made a thriller that is more wider audience friendly - if that is how you can describe an cinema terror experience.

1.A terror film? Scares? Touches of horror? Beyond the natural?

2.The adaptation of a Korean story to the United States? The French sensibilities of the writer and the director?

3.The title, mirrors and reflections, the other self in the mirror, psychology and the double persona, mirrors containing images, imprisoning images, those behind the mirrors trying to get out? How well did the film use all these themes?

4.The visuals, the credits and the double image of New York? The range of mirrors throughout the film, the reflections? The subway death and the mirror? The Mayflower and its walls? The ordinary house, table surfaces, water surfaces? Deadly mirrors? The cracking of the mirrors and their mending? Danger, Ben covering the mirrors, painting them? Michael scraping them? The end and Ben trapped behind the mirror looking at reflections?

5.The prologue, the atmosphere of fear, the chase, the security man trapped, the mirrors, his other self, slashing his throat? The body in the morgue?

6.Ben and his background, his experience as a detective, Amy and his children, his visits, the maid and her fears, his job after being suspended as a detective, his having shot someone? The Mayflower tour, the daytime security man? The information? His predecessor and his death – and Ben later receiving the parcel of newspaper cuttings? At work, the noises, seeing the body, the hallucinations? The break and the healing? His cutting his hand? His own reflections? His search of the building? Discovering St Matthew’s Hospital?

7.Ben and his short temper, easily upset, his drinking, anger, erratic behaviour, his wife and children trying to comprehend, his wife and her forensic work, at the morgue? His return to the house, removing and painting the mirrors?

8.The information about the Mayflower, the files? The number of people under experimentation, their deaths, the certificates? Behind the mirrors?

9.The doctor with his information about the deaths, Anna and the documents, the inconsistencies, Ben driving to Pennsylvania, meeting the family, the mysterious name on the mirror? Anna’s brother, his telling the truth?

10.Ben going to the convent, the reception by the nuns, Anna talking with him, considering his proposal, his giving her the photo of wife and children, going to her room, her decision to go to New York? Her motivation?

11.Ben and Angela, her help, his staying with her, her job, going to the bath, her mirror image, the grotesqueness of her death? Ben’s grief and anger?

12.Larry, on the police force, the investigation, his helping Ben with the information? The meeting in the taxi? The files?

13.Ben, the final mirrors, his fears?

14.Michael, in the mirror, his mother’s concern, Daisy, their father’s absence, Amy’s image? Michael remaining behind the mirror? The water images, Amy saving him from drowning?

15.The exorcising of the spirits, Anna going to St Matthew’s (*?Hospital?) in the chair, blindfold, her surrender for the sake of others? The explosions, her death, the attack on Ben?

16.Amy and the children saved?

17.Ben surviving, the seeming happy ending, the reflections, the truth that he was trapped behind the mirror?

18.The different ways for creating mood, suggestions, audiences identifying with the characters, scares and fears?