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After he was involved in the accidental death of a fellow cop, Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland) lost everything: his job, his family, his life. But now he’s trying to get his life back. He’s managed to stay sober for a few months, and he’s even gotten himself a job as a night security guard for the old Mayflower Department Store, which burned down five years ago.
From his first night on the job, Ben is unsettled by the store’s walls of spotless mirrors. Then he begins seeing things in the mirrors: handprints, cracks, and even screaming burn victims. It’s not long before whatever it is in the mirrors follows him home, to the apartment he shares with his younger sister, Angie (Amy Smart).
When Angie is brutally murdered, Ben is convinced that the mirrors are to blame. Determined to stop the mirrors before they get to his wife and kids, he begins to investigate the creepy old building—and the clues lead him to an old mental hospital, an unsolved tragedy, and, finally, to an aging nun in Pennsylvania, who could be the key to everything.
In the beginning, Mirrors has all the elements of the perfect psychological / supernatural thriller. Its The Shining-like atmosphere is perfectly creepy: an old, abandoned building at night, filled with half-melted mannequins and covered in mirrors. It’s dark, it’s empty, and every last sound echoes. Sure, it’s a bit manipulative; but it works. Right from the beginning, it’ll have you on edge. And when things start appearing in the mirrors, it gets spookier yet.
Mirrors is the kind of movie that gets in your head. As Ben walks through the old building on his rounds, you’ll hold your breath—and you’ll jump (just like he does) at every little sound. And as the story starts to unfold, you’ll find yourself caught up in the horrors that once took place in the old Mayflower building.
But when Ben starts to delve deeper into the investigation—when he leaves the building and hits the road to look for answers—things start to fall apart. The film loses its eerie atmosphere, and it starts to over-explain things until nothing makes any sense anymore. It’s so complex that it’s distracting. And by the time the film builds to its big climax, you’ll be so busy trying to figure out what it all means that you won’t even care about what’s happening on-screen.
Had writer/director Alexandre Aja kept it simple with this Korean horror remake, it could have been an effective (and nightmare-worthy) psychological thriller. Instead, the endless details and complexities are sure to pull you out of the story, leaving you scratching your head in confusion instead of shuddering in horror.
