Mirrors 2 Blu-ray offers solid video and decent audio, but overall it's a disappointing Blu-ray release
The grisly slaughters continue after a young woman is brutally murdered in front of a mirror that is a portal to the world of the undead. Embarking on a murderous rampage, one by one she stalks the men and women responsible for her horrific death, exacting bloody revenge by dismembering and eviscerating the guilty. They can’t run, they can’t hide and they can’t look in the mirror because inside the mirrors the dead live on...waiting for vengeance.
A low-budget, straight-to-DVD and Blu-ray sequel to Mirrors, French director Alexandre Aja's slick, scare-less, Kiefer Sutherland-starring
Hollywood horror production—itself a loose remake of a Korean film—Mirrors 2, as you'd expect, is unrelentingly atrocious, even by direct-to-
video standards. This is the kind of film that gets oozed out into the market right before Halloween, its cover proudly displaying the now-meaningless
adjective UNRATED—in a blood red, all-caps font, no less—along with a screaming, heavily photoshopped ghost face and a generic tagline like "The
Terror Lives On." Don't take the bait. There have been so many great Halloween-horror-marathon-worthy releases on Blu-ray this year—The
Exorcist, The Evil Dead, House, to name a few—so why waste your time and money on this dreck?
More Mirrors!
Poor Nick Stahl. The guy goes from roles in The Thin Red Line, Sin City, HBO's Carnivàle, and Terminator 3: Rise of the
Machines to this, playing a sad sack night security guard in a derivative, no-budget, direct-to-nowhere horror sequel. His character, Max
Matheson, is slowly getting over a mental breakdown caused by his fiancé's death in a car accident. He's depressed. He sleeps in. He's got a
psychiatrist who talks in screenwriter Matt Venne's overreaching attempts at psychobabble. To get him out of this slump, his dad—William Katt,
sporting an impressively cornball mullet/ponytail combo—gets Max a job making the midnight rounds at The Mayflower, the high-end department
store that serves as the only real link between this film and its predecessor. (The store was in New York in Mirrors, this branch is in spooky
old New Orleans, although the city is never seen except in a few fleeting shots of streetcars during the opening credits. Almost all of the action—due
to budget constraints, presumably—takes place either in the store or in the characters' apartments.) As we see in the prologue, the Mayflower's
previous security guard completely flipped out and started chomping on bits of broken glass—we're shown this in great detail, in a scene that goes on
for about a minute too long—so we already know that some dark force dwells in this premiere retail space. Sure enough, his first night on the job,
Max sees a dead girl in the break room mirror. She's a typical tormented B-movie spirit—dark hair, blackened eyes, brooding. You know—totally
emo.
Like far too many ghost stories, Mirrors 2 becomes a dull who-dunit murder mystery, with Max trying desperately to figure out the dead
girl's motivations. "Tell me what I need to do!" he even yells at the mirror spirit as she—for no reason whatsoever—plunges the blades of a pair of
scissors into her eye sockets. The movie makes ghosts look like total idiots. As Max darts around the bowels of the store with a flashlight, the
vengeful she-spirit brutally machinates the killings of those complicit in her death. The Mayflower's clothing purchaser (Christy Carlson Romano) gets
her head lopped off by a falling piece of glass—after a lengthy and gratuitous boob-ogling shower scene, of course. The vice prez finds his Achilles
tendons being cut of their own accord and then falls prey to a hara kiri-style stomach slicing. And Max's own dear dad very nearly gets offed by a
pizza
slicer. (Scary!) The kills are taken wholesale from better horror films and there's no terror or suspense whatsoever. The same routine is followed over
and over: 1.) Person stands in front of mirror. 2.) Their reflection—oh crap!—doesn't follow their movements. 3.) Said reflection starts self-harming.
4.) Stupid person, transfixed, doesn't think to just bolt out of the room. 5.) Stupid person dies in stupid disbelief. It's stupid.
At no time do any of the characters act like rational human beings. No, forget the rational bit, they barely act like humans at all. The insipid script is
largely to blame, but the acting is awful as well. Stahl is the
only one who seems remotely convincing, but that's not saying much. His character is on anti-depressants, yes, but that doesn't mean he has to
look like he's in the middle of a bleary, Quaalude-induced stupor. The others, though, are far, far worse, either theatrically overacting—making each
line of dialogue seem like a grand pronouncement—or seeming barely present.
The film was directed by Victor Garcia, a Spaniard who, having previously helmed Return to House on Haunted Hill, is no stranger to making
even-worse sequels to already-bad horror movies. What I can't understand is why he made Mirrors 2 so self-serious. In this situation, with
no budget and no real expectations—I mean, it's not like anyone was salivating over a sequel to Mirrors—it would be better to go completely
over-the-top, to make a crazy film that would stand out amongst all the other direct-to-video titles in the bargain bin. Hell, call the thing Mirrors
2: Even More Mirrors. Instead, what we have here is a film that wants desperately to be a glossy Hollywood horror movie, but doesn't have the
budget—or cast, or special effects, or scares—to pull it off.
What were you expecting, Avatar? Mirrors 2 is a schlocky no-budget horror movie, and it looks the part on Blu-ray, with a 1080p/AVC-
encoded transfer that's serviceable but dull. I couldn't find any confirmation online, but I'm guessing the film was shot on high definition video. There are
occasional moments of refined clarity—the terrycloth nubs of a bath towel, crisp facial texture in close-up, gross-out dead girl make-up, etc.—but most of
the film has a slightly soft appearance. The color palette—no surprise here—is drabber than drab, the only vividness coming from the occasional splash of
bright red blood. Black levels during the darker scenes become a hazy gray, contrast is weak, and the cumulative effect is a picture with little pop or
presence. Basically, it looks as cheap as it is. Still, the encode is relatively solid, with no drastic compression problems or other issues. Ranked along the
entire spectrum of Blu-ray releases, Mirrors 2 is definitely visually sub par, but the transfer, when held to the film's cheapo standards, holds up
fairly well.
Usually even bad horror films have booming, immersive soundtracks—the loud, musical stab-induced jump scare is the go-to tactic for movies
than can't generate real fear—but Mirror 2's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix is a rather inert affair. There's just not much going on here,
audio-wise. You'll hear some exploding glass, some rain in the rears, some quiet ambience at times, but that's about it. The music limps along and the
appropriate effects are trundled out at the appropriate times, but there's no heft or presence to this mix. It's lightweight stuff, with little to no LFE
engagement and a severe underuse of the surround channels. Still, on the plus side, the voices are always clean, clear, and easy to understand, so that
you can effortlessly hear the characters' dim-witted dialogue.
The Other Side: Making Mirrors 2 (1080p, 9:39)
The kind of glad-handing making-of featurette where all the talking head participants talk kindly about one another and compare Mirrors 2 to
much greater films. Lawrence Turner even evokes Blue Velvet and calls his character "Frank Booth's bastard son." Whatever.
Keeping it Real: The Visual and Special Effects of Mirrors 2 (1080p, 12:33)
A quick look at the film's practical and CGI effects, once more with comparisons to other films: "My death is almost like a throwback to Psycho,"
says Christy Carlson Romano of her shower scene. Really?
Watch Mirrors 2 with the Woman in the Mirror
A picture-in-picture mode that pops up whenever a mirror is present to show the "creepy" view from inside the film's "mirror world."
Deleted Scenes (1080p, 2:08)
Original Korean Feature Film Into the Mirror on DVD
It's not exactly a saving grace, but the included DVD copy of Mirrors 2 generously features Into the Mirror on the flipside.
You too may feel like stabbing your eyes out with scissors after Mirrors 2. Just to reiterate, the straight-to-video movie isn't worthy of your time
or money, and doesn't even deserve a rental. (Let's put it this way: if I
wasn't getting paid to watch it and write about it, there's no way I'd ever make it through the first ten minutes.) For a scarier Halloween experience, go
into your bathroom, turn off the lights, and play "Bloody Mary." Or, better yet, pick up some of the true horror classics that have finally made their way
to Blu-ray recently.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has announced Mirrors 2 for Blu-ray release on October 19. This direct-to-video sequel to the psychological thriller Mirrors will come out in a BD/DVD combo and include Into the Mirror (Geoul sokeuro), the 2003 Korean film ...
