Mirrors (2008)

Plot of Mirrors: Ben Carson is a policeman, suspended for something, and has taken a job as a security guard in a former department store, destroyed by fire. He is estranged from his wife and living with his sister. Things are happening in the mirrors in the building, but he can’t tell what and when he tells people about it they think he is suffering from PTS. He receives a package from the previous security guard with info about the mirrors, and we have seen the guard apparently kill himself. We see Ben’s sister die gruesomely at the hand, it seems, of her mirror reflection, so Ben goes to the family home and starts to remove mirrors to his wife’s distress. He is prompted by the name Esseker, appearing on one of the store’s mirrors to search out for anyone with that name, and a distressing story emerges, centring on a child Anna Esseker who was imprisoned in a mirrored room in the store’s basement. Can Ben find Esseker and set the demons to rest.

Content: Ben’s sister is seen getting into a bath before, before being mutilated by her mirror image. So really no nudity or sex. Ben spends a lot of time walking about in the semi-darkness of the burnt out building and in the basement find his way into a space containing a chair and the mirrors. The building, or an earlier one, is seen to have once been a psychiatric clinic. He acts a bit madly as he tried to protect his family by removing or painting over the mirrors. In looking for Esseker he finds that the building was burnt down and many people died. His wife only believes him when she sees an image of their son looking out of a mirror after the boy has gone away, and later he is attacked by the reflections.

A View: This film was generally disliked by the critics who said it was too formulaic but it made money and honestly it worked for me, although like many horror films the logic gets more and more shaky as we move towards the climax. There is some thing particularly creepy about ghosts or demons who are not restricted to particular spaces, so the victims cannot really ever get away from them, and so it is with this film. So despite the negative reviews probably a watch for nothing if you can find it.

Fun Fact: The filming was done mostly in the unfinished Romanian Academy of Sciences Building in Bucharest.