Apparently, there has been some confusion as to the origins of this film. The director of Mirrors, Alexandre Aja, has claimed the project was not a remake of the 2003 South Korean horror film Into the Mirror, though there are some definite similarities. Those similarities must have been close enough to make Mirrors distributors nervous, because the final credits state that the movie is based on the Korean film.
Keifer Sutherland (24) plays a suspended cop who takes a job as a night security guard at a big department store that was destroyed by fire. The building is awaiting its fate, while insurance companies decide what to do with it. In the meantime, what’s left of it, has to be carefully guarded. Everything in the building is burnt and destroyed, except for the neatly polished mirrors. Despite the boredom of the job, Ben needs the work. A recovering alcoholic, he’s separated from his wife Amy (Paula Patton) and two children Michael (Cameron Boyce) and Daisy (Erica Gluck). He spends most of his free time at the home of his sister Angie (Amy Smart).
As the days go by, Ben starts to notice some strange things at the department store. He begins to see things in the mirrors. Since he takes strong medication to help him with his alcoholism, others believe the drugs are to blame for what he sees. However, Ben knows there’s something supernatural happening behind the silver and glass. He starts to see victims of the fire and witnesses himself burning in his own reflection. One day, he cuts his hand when one of the mirrors shatters but the cut mysteriously heals itself. It doesn’t take Ben very long to realize that these supernatural forces are probably not confined to the department store. Instead, they’re able to use any reflective surface to interact with the outside world. Unfortunately, these are not kind forces, as the killed Gary Lewis, the man who previously had Ben’s job. The motive of the mirrors soon becomes clear; they are trying to force Ben in finding somebody or something known as Esseker.
Without giving away any major plot points and twists, I will say the rest of Mirrors finds Ben desperately trying to uncover the truth behind the word Esseker and protect his family from danger. Some of the occurrences in Mirrors are rather cliché and can be figured out before they unfold but the story does try to introduce one or two twists to try and keep things interesting. The ending attempts to be unique and shocking but just feels over the top.
In my opinion, Mirrors misses the mark. It seems like Alexandre Aja had a solid idea here but he couldn’t quite bring it to fruition. It’s too bad really, because Keifer Sutherland is a find actor. As he has shown on 24, Keifer has a knack for playing tortured souls. Unfortunately, Sutherland’s skills get lost when the film becomes a non-stop collage of Ben painting mirrors. While the film itself is entertaining, the plot became far to predictable to call it truly original.
Mirrors arrive on Blu-ray with a 2.40:1 aspect ratio transfer that is generally grainy and poorly detailed. Coloring isn’t and much of the picture has an appeal reminiscent of horror films from a decade ago. The grainy picture affects black levels as well and darker scenes lose some level of detail. These were decisions in the filmmaking process and style hurts how well this picture translates at 1080p. Overall, the transfer is technically sound, but it doesn´t make this film any more pleasing to the eyes.
The English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is an improvement over the picture quality. The film contains some nice ambient effects and the sound of shattering mirrors is quite impressive as the high frequencies come out quite sharp. Deep bass is equally impressive and the LFE channel rumbles nicely a few times. The old department store, the Mayflower, sounded quite impressive and had a lot of haunting ambience. Dialogue was clean.
The Blu-ray release of Mirrors is billed as an ´Unrated´ version of the film and as a ´Digital Copy Special Edition.´ The Digital Copy I contained on a second disc, a DVD, and this can be installed for playback on anything that can play either an iTunes or Windows Media Player formatted media file. The film also contains the Unrated Version of the film and the Theatrical Version. The unrated version contains a new Alternate Ending.
The disc is also Enhanced for D-Box Motion Control Systems. You can then choose whether or not you want to watch the Unrated or Theatrical version, but may switch using the menus at any time. The ending is contained in the Deleted and Alternate Scenes (15:37). These eight scenes contain optional commentary with Alexandre Aja and do add a little depth to the film.
The title contains BonusView material for Profile 1.1 players. This is the Mirror Images (45:12) functionality that contains a Commentary by Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur. The behind-the-scenes footage that is included in these PiP windows is worth checking out and for those without Profile 1.1 players, they can be played via a “Play All” menu selection. You can use the red button on the remote to manipulate the PiP and toggle between the small window and full screen. There is also a nice number of Storyboard to Screen Comparisons that are also part of the Profile 1.1 feature set. This can be toggled with the green button. Unfortunately, you may only have one of the two features active at a time, so watching the film two additional times will be required if you want to enjoy them all. Or, you could watch the “Mirror Images” behind-the-scenes stuff separately and then use Profile 1.1 for the storyboard stuff.
Four Featurettes are included. The first featurette is the Anna Esseker Hospital Footage (5:33). This is ´aged´ film footage that was created for the film to show Anna´s stay in the mental hospital Reflections: The Making of Mirrors (48:40) is your more typical documentary on the making of the film and goes into some nice detail about all aspects of bringing the story to screen. The Behind the Mirror (18:22) is your more familiar EPK style featurette and not nearly as detailed as the longer one and not as interesting. The Animated Storyboard Sequence (1:09) is of the film´s saddest scene, when the lovely blonde has an unfortunate bath.
