Somebody smash these MIRRORS! They're defective!

What a huge, huge bummer. In an effort to appease the horror gods, and to allow myself to see a movie for once without reading every single spoiler online first, I hit a midnight screening of the new horror flick MIRRORS last night. And I'm damn tired right now, but thankfully it's slow at work for the moment being, so I'm hoping the writing process for this post will revive me a bit.

So anyway, back to the matter at hand: MIRRORS....what a disappointing clusterfuck of a movie. My expectations and hopes have been relatively high, mainly due to the film's director/co-writer, Alexandra Aja. As part of this whole new French wave of horror makers, Aja could be considered the first to officially break through into American studios. His first all-Frenchy-made gem, HAUTE TENSION (or HIGH TENSION, as it was called when released here to little fanfare, so sadly), is easily in my top ten horror films of the last five or so years. It's brutal as hell, intense, packs enough gore to make these lame SAW films seem futile, and packs some of the best acting and musical score a scare-lover could ask for. And then he went and remade Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES, and I loved that one, too. A total in-your-face, uncompromisingly visceral American studio-backed horror film, which is a rarity these days. Again, he conjured up some quality performances a sick soundtrack of pulsating electronica, and that trailer-pillage sequence is still one for the books.

So with the announcement of MIRRORS some time back, I was excited. Granted, it's a loose remake of an Asian flick, INTO THE MIRROR, but whatever. It's Aja, so it has to kick some ass, no? And it stars Kiefer Sutherland, and he's a pretty capable actor, eh? And Paula Patton and Amy Smart co-star, and both are insanely gorgeous women, so how could this go wrong, right?

Man, oh man. Let's start with my initial pet peeve here: how the online clips and promo footage TOTALLY ruined the film's two moneyshots--a gruesome self-inflicted throat slashing, and then a holy-shit-worthy jaw-rip-off that's truly a sight to behold. But again, both of these were pretty shown much in their respective entirety online weeks ago. And of course, being the bait-taker I am, I watched both, thinking deep down: "If this is what they're giving away online, just imagine what even crazier shit must be in the movie!"

Well, there's crazier shit, alright, but crazy in the sense that it has no shred of logic or coherence. Aja should stick to brutal carnage, because the supernatural arena is a terrible look for the dude. Basically, Sutherland is an ostracized detective with a drinking problem, trying to make amends with his family and taking a night watchman gig at this huge, abandoned department store in Manhattan. Working there after sundown, he starts noticing some "spooky" happenings within the dozens of giant mirrors housed within the store (called The Mayflower), which turns out [SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! DON'T CONTINUE READING IF YOU PLAN ON WASTING YOUR MONEY AND SEEING THIS FLICK] to be the handiwork of some demon trapped with some particular mirrors. See, the Mayflower was originally an insane asylum, and one of the methods used against schizophrenia was to tie a patient down to a chair surrounded by wall-sized mirrors for days in, hoping to exercise the inner evil through constant reflection. Or some shit like that.

This explanation sucks, plain and simple. It's muddle, reeks of THE RING and THE GRUDGE, and takes way way too long to get to, exposition wise. And on the way to this conclusion, there's some truly heinous dialogue to be heard, especially some choice lines delivered by the truly-beautiful Patton. She's practically flawless looking, and has some acting chops, but the character she's given here (Sutherland's wife) is very weak, and says shit like, "Don't make me threaten you!" or annoyingly repeats her son's name, "Michael!? Michael!? Michael!?" while searching for him once the heeby jeebies enter their house (but wait, how did the jeeby demon even leave the department store? Hell if I know). Oh, and the kid playing this Michael needs to take acting lessons from Abigail Breslin, or pick a new career path, because he's grating as hell and just plain bad at the thesp thing.

Sutherland's performance is hit-or-miss, too. At times, he's basically just channeling his Jack Bauer character from the show 24, yelling stuff like "Dammit!" in moments of frustration. Other instances, he's pretty convincing in his turmoil and conflict. And poor Amy Smart, she's given like zero to do here other than to repeatedly tell Sutherland (she plays his sister) "There's nothing in the mirrors," or ask "You sure you're okay?" But then the mirror demon pays her a visit while she's getting ready for a bath (again, how the fuck did it leave the department store!?!?), and man is this scene nasty and well-done. But again, it's completely given away in the promo footage, and what's actually in the movie is ideally the same, save for a couple seconds more of awesome. I fucking hate when studios ruin their film's best parts before anybody has actually seen the movie.

In the end, though, I place the blame mainly on Aja's shoulders here. He was a bit overzealous, trying too many things all at once, rather than simply streamlining his better ideas. Either make a dark and moody ghost story a la THE RING, or go for full-on face-ripping mayhem and call it a bloody day. By no means, however, am I writing Aja off. Every filmmaker has that one misstep, so I'm considering MIRRORS Aja's.....come next summer, though, when his PIRANHA 3D hits screens, he better shape up and stick to the over-the-top gore balanced by strong visuals. Otherwise, he'll start heading down the "once cool but now played out" path of one Eli Roth, Mr. HOSTEL himself.

And speaking of Roth, why in the fuck did Quentin Tarantino cast him as bat-swinging Bazi killer 'Donowitz' in his upcoming INGLORIOUS BASTERDS? I'm clearly missing something here. But oh well, Tarantino is still my dude, so I'll reserve hate for now until I actually see the flick.