Mirrors - Saved by the Nuns (JAR OF FATE #5)
Like many horror fans, I obsessively collect horror movies on DVD and Blu-Ray. They sit in piles around my tiny apartment. Some are collector’s editions, some come from Scream Factory, lots of them are gifts. Some come from the $5 bin at Walmart, and a lot come from library sales where they’re only $1. Or that time HMV went out of business and I bought their entire horror collection for like $100. And sure, I may have four copies of Carrie, but I regret nothing.
Unfortunately, obsessively picking up horror movies means there’s a lot I haven’t watched. Whether it be that I’ve never seen the movie before, or I haven’t seen this particular version, or I have never cracked open the DVD because the movie is streaming and I’m lazy.
How do I solve this guilt I have as I sit streaming Netflix while piles of DVD’s surround me, judging quietly? I made a TO BE WATCHED jar, or as my friend Zo named it; JAR OF FATE. I went through my collection and wrote down all the movies I wanted to watch on little scraps of paper and whenever I want to watch something, I pull randomly from the jar.
The fifth random pick is 2008’s Mirrors directed by Alexandre Aja.
Mirrors stars Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, and Amy Smart. This was supposed to be a remake of a South Korean horror film, Into the Mirror, but when Aja read the script he decided to change it up a bit. He took the basic idea of the haunted mirrors and added a brand-new story to it.
Here’s what it’s all about:
Ben Carson is a suspended police detective, split from his wife and kids, living with his sister and trying to deal with his 3 months of sobriety. He accepts a night watchmen job at the Mayflower, a massive department store that was gutted by a fire 5 years before. On his first night patrolling he sees some strange things in the mirrors and as he continues his job the visions and strange occurrences start to follow him home. Ben does some deep diving into the history of the building, and the security guard he’s replacing, but as he digs deeper the horror starts to attack everyone around him.
“Best to keep your eyes away from them.”
Here’s what I loved: (FULL SPOILERS)
The concept itself is great. There’s so many urban legends surrounding mirrors and they’re used frequently for jump scares in horror flicks. In this story we’re directly faced with that fear. But, the ghosts/demons what have you, can appear in any reflection and this movie taught me HOW MANY THINGS REFLECT YOU. Hot damn. Like, nowhere is safe! Doorknobs, TV screens, water etc. “They’re everywhere.” “What are you talking about?’ “The fucking mirrors, they’re everywhere.”
The scares were also pretty great, but a few were destroyed by the terrible CG on display in this flick. One scene in particular has Ben flailing on the ground covered in fire, but the fire looks so fake that it’s really hard not to laugh as Sutherland tries his best to pretend he’s on fire. BUT – outside of the odd CG, a lot of the scares were fun. There was one scare I really loved where Ben sees a woman in the changing rooms reflected in the mirror, she’s badly burned and you can’t see her very well – her bloody, burned legs are just kicking around in the dirt. It was really freaky and actually gave me the goo000ooosebumps.
RESEARCH MONTAGE! I love a research montage. We’ve got the uplifting music, the pacing back and forth, the frantically digging through pages and pages of articles and medical records, the red pen for circling important facts. Ugh. I love it. And we’ve got one in this movie. Technically we actually have two!
NUNS!!!!!!!!!!!! I fucking love nuns you guys, I love them so much. While watching Mirrors I was sitting at a 3/5. Then the research happens and we find out that Mayflower (the department store) used to be a psychiatric hospital. There was a patient there named Anna Esseker and the mirrors want her back. She left the hospital two days before all the patients killed themselves (leading to the hospital closing down). After a childhood of trauma and I guess demon possession? The mirrors take it from her and she secretly leaves. But the mirrors are haunting her, like they’re doing with Ben, so her family sent her to somewhere mirrors don’t exist. A CONVENT!!!!!!!!!!! Ben goes to find Anna and she’s a nun. He begs her to help him but she’s like nah brah, I’m gonna stay with my nun friends. So, he kidnaps her at gun point and takes her back to the Mayflower so the demon can enter her again. That’s when I was like YASSSS I’m back onboard!
“Do whatever it takes to end this.”
Overall, Mirrors was a 4/5 for me because the nuns and the creepy hospital background saved it. I love that shit. It’s got some fun scares, a very violent death scene that is quite “jaw dropping” (to quote Doug) and the burned department store filled with mirrors makes a great haunted house experience. The last action scene is very over the top and dramatic, the final film’s minutes are twisty enough to bring you back around again. It’s very up and down but a great one-time watch!
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