Mirrors

Dir: Alexandre Aja

Starring: Kiefer Sutherland

Paula Patton

Amy Smart

Jason Flemyng

Somewhere in between the east/west culture communication gap lies America's yearn for Asian horror cinema remakes. In that gap sits a heavy pile of unsuccessfully executed films chalk full of possessed children, pissed off ghosts, and cheap "it was there, now it's not" scares. Mirrors is no exception to this heap.

With a treasure trove of on the nose dialogue and a cornucopia of plot holes, Mirrors would probably be more fun to watch as a drinking game. Throw one back every time Kiefer Sutherland's contrived past comes out in his on-screen wife's generic ridden speech. He used to drink? You don't say. He had to raise his sister after his dad died? Shocking. No wonder he became a cop and lost his head (and his badge) after he accidently shot another officer while working undercover. That kind of writing is just lazy. It's like the Hamburger Helper of character development.

There isn't a lot of confusion with plot, culture transfer, or even structure of the film (which are problems with many asian horror remakes). Although, I did second guess the package that Kiefer's character received from a dead man somewhere towards the end of the first act. A minor detail. Unfortunately for Mirrors, a large amount of minor details can morph into one big disappointment.

Some visually interesting things happen with reflection ( not just the mirrors! You aren't safe anywhere!), and Amy Smart's few minutes of screen time ( four scenes so short that one would almost call it a cameo) lead her to a visceral fate that will have most gore hounds nodding their collective heads. But it's just not enough to save Alexandre Aja's one hundred a ten minute pedestrian attempt at horror. Which is, on a personal level, quite unsatisfying. I had such high hopes after his previous efforts.

Mirrors contains neither depth nor narrative discourse. There's no hidden message or social/ political commentary underneath the blood and the breasts and the rotting flesh. And where some would argue that the genre's success depends on just that (blood, breasts, and rotting flesh), any good horror aficionado can tell you the true meaning behind the classics. Since Mirrors doesn't carry any message, it's almost a laugh out loud moment when Smart delivers the line, "They're just glass and silver...there's nothing behind them". Unfortunately for anyone who averts his/her gaze at this feature, they'll find the same thing behind the few scenes of gore, anticlimactic suspense, and forced uses of the f-bomb; absolutely nothing.