Product Description

AN EX-COP AND HIS FAMILY ARE THE TARGET OF AN EVIL FORCE THAT IS USING MIRRORS AS A GATEWAY INTO THEIR HOME.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7965 in DVD
• Brand: TCFHE
• Released on: 2009-01-13
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 5.00 pounds
• Running time: 110 minutes

Amazon.com
Kiefer Sutherland anchors this supernatural thriller from Hills Have Eyes (2006) director Alexandra Aja about an abandoned building that harbors vengeful spirits. Sutherland brings a degree of his 24 intensity to his role as a disgraced police detective working a security detail at a derelict building. A package from a former security guard--who commits suicide in the film’s eerie opening moments--alerts Sutherland to the building’s tragic past, as well as to the presence of dark forces with the ability to harm the living; once aware of their presence, Sutherland and his family become their next target. Mirrors works best in its first third, where Joseph Nemec’s production design delivers maximum chills. Where the film stumbles is its rush to provide a slam-bang conclusion filled with CGI and other effects, resulting in an unsatisfying, open-ended conclusion that does much to dispel the film’s impressively Gothic atmosphere. The unrated DVD presentation differs from the theatrical cut by mere seconds, and the alternate ending included among the battery of deleted scenes is a more satisfying conclusion than the one used in the film. --Paul Gaita

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
Ever since I caught wind of High Tension, anytime I see Alexandre Aja's name attached to something I look forward to it. His remake of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes was genuinely terrifying, and his script for P2 had potential, even though that film as a whole just didn't work out well. Mirrors finds Aja helming another remake (this time of the 2003 South Korean film Into the Mirror), and stars Kiefer Sutherland as Ben Carson, an ex-cop trying to get back on his feet, and back into the good graces of his estranged wife (Paula Patton) while he stays with his sister (Amy Smart). Taking a job as a night watchman of a partially destroyed department store, Ben soon learns of an evil force that is inhabiting the mirrors, and jeopardizing the lives of his family and himself. Despite some genuinely shocking and gory moments (Amy Smart's scene in the bathtub is, and I just can't help the pun here, jaw-dropping), Mirrors as a whole is just too slow-moving and dull. Not to mention that the bevy of plot holes, leaps in logic, and Sutherland's somewhat annoying performance don't help matters much here either. Still though, Mirrors isn't a terrible horror flick my any stretch of the imagination, but it definitely doesn't do a director like Aja justice either. All in all, Mirrors is worth a look, but here's hoping that Aja rebounds from this otherwise disappointing horror flick.

Awful but atmospheric
I like Keifer Sutherland, and I like horror/ghost stories, but this septic compilation of disjointed genre tricks and a bad script are painful to watch. Ghost story? Demonic possession? Alternate universe? Pick one already. The premise isn't horrible, but the inconsistencies are blatent and the execution of the storyline leave you scratching your head wondering if the director even knew what he was going after. Even the ending was a convenient gimmic inconsistent with the premise. All in all, one of Keifers worst. However, if there's a saving grace to this film it's the sets, which added a sense of menace and were genuinely well done.

Not Believable
Slasher / horror films have to start off believable to actually scare the viewer. Mirrors just doesn't set the stage with anything credible.

The opening montage of the security guard running around a subway station and then being forced to slit his throat with a broken mirror, works pretty well. It's scary, the guard looks trapped, and he has no idea what to do. The second scary part is when Jack Bauer, oopsie, Ben Carson, played by Keifer Sutherland, a laid off police detective does his rounds at night in a burned out department store. The part that just doesn't ring true, he jumps every single time a bird flies. The director keeps birds flying all over the place. A trained detective, even nervous, would never jump the way Ben does. From there the credible details just fall all over the place. At one point, Ben just blindly fires his gun, nothing there, no mirrors, just fires it. Definately not something a police officer would ever do. Detail after detail just stopped adding up.

So this viewer had a lot of difficulty being drawn into the story line of this movie. Production-wise, the film is done decently. There's some out of focus shots. The pacing, which is absolutely critical to horror films, just didn't work. No rythmn was built and maintained. The film lopes along between gory scenes, dragging its feet most of the time. Audio was well recorded and dialog clear. The blood, seemed real.

This is an extremely gory movie. About every 20 minutes a person is killed or disfigured, and there is a ton of blood whenever that happens. The single worst one is the first bathtub scene. Frankly, that was probably a bit too far over the top. There's a fair amount of strong language. And there's two scenes of full nudity (Amy Smart one notable scene). Definately an R rated film. At one hour 50 minutes, this is a long film.

The DVD has a single special feature, theatrical release and an unrated release. There is 1 minute difference between the two. It's virtually impossible to tell what was changed, certainly somebody has uncovered that useless bit of trivia.