Dude here.

Those of you who have read my earlier reviews (surely there are a couple of you out there) know that I’m no fan of horror movies.  Over the years, horror films have convinced me that saying “Candyman” fives time into a mirror will produce an angry one-handed black man, snowy TV’s can capture you and hold you prisoner in the spirit world, amputees can control their severed limbs for evil-doing if they’re angry enough, and anyone living in a rundown farmhouse is either a chainsaw wielding maniac, a mutant, a zombie, or a chainsaw wielding mutant zombie maniac.

Certain films have even altered my lifestyle.  I didn’t sleep for most of the late 80s after watching A Nightmare on Elm Street.  For months after viewing The Exorcist I carried around my own canteen of holy water, dousing any little girl who turned her head too far in any one direction.  And I don’t think I’ll ever visit Colorado since The Shining has me certain that all hotels there turn their staff into murdering, axe-swinging nutjobs.

But when I saw Amy Smart on the cast list for this week’s feature Mirrors, I risked the emotional scarring and gave it a shot.  She’s one of my favorite actresses even though she makes awful career choices and I rarely enjoy her movies…in other words, I think she’s hot.  Unfortunately, her best movies are now ten years past, when she had starring roles in 1999’s Varsity Blues and 2000’s Road Trip.  More recently she’s starred in the terribly sucky Crank movies opposite Jason Statham.  You have to work pretty hard to muck up a film featuring Amy Smart and Jason Statham, another of my favorite actors, but Crank has done it twice.  Aside from that, she’s been mostly relegated to supporting roles and bit parts.  Still, I was looking forward to seeing her in Mirrors, especially since the previews showed her dropping a towel and climbing into a hot bath.

**SPOILER ALERT**

Disappointingly, that’s about the extent of her role in this ridiculous mess, because soon after she slips into the bath, the evil bathroom mirror seizes control of her and forces her to rip off her own jaw.  Talk about ruining the moment…

It wasn’t scary, just gross.  In fact, it reminded me of Beetlejuice when the Maitlands attempt to make themselves scary ghosts by stretching their faces into ridiculous poses.  And unfortunately, most of Mirrors is the same way, relying on gore rather than generating real scares.

**END SPOILER**

Mirrors stars Keifer Sutherland as down-on-his-luck former NYPD detective Ben Carson, who quits the force and essentially his marriage after shooting a man.  We pick up Ben’s story as he’s coming back up the staircase of his shame spiral, now taking pills to aid him in his fight against alcohol abuse, once again seeking gainful employment, and looking to resuscitate his flat-lining marriage.  He takes a job as a nighttime security guard at a department store that was decimated by a fire that resulted in mass casualties. 

Through ridiculous contrivance, the store apparently still needs someone to walk through its three or four floors at night for…what, exactly?  There’s nothing of value in the place and the building needs condemned, but it still needs a security guard making rounds?  Maybe the pigeons need companionship.  Whatever the case, anyone with a modicum of horror savvy knows that places like this are evil and bad, and all those who died in the fire are likely still in there as honked off ghosts, ready to play tricks on you or steal your wallet or commit other unpleasant acts.  And they love to pick on people who are on strong prescription drugs or have a history of mental illness in the family because they know those people are halfway to crazy already, and they’ll likely write off their visions and the frightening occurrences as their own nutty brain being nutty.  Predictably, it takes Ben all of about ten seconds of his first round to see that the evil in this place resides in the mirrors, and this sets him on a quest to find out the secret behind the mirrors before the evil unloads on him and his family.

Director Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes) must have been copping directly from the horror film universal playbook, because this film has a ton of standard scary movie clichés.  So let’s run down the checklist:  Down-on-his-luck and/or half crazy hero?  Check.  Abandoned or destroyed mental hospital and/or patient?  Gotchya covered.  Gory deaths of unessential characters?  Yes sir!  Spooky rundown farmhouse where inbred yokels live in isolation and their own filth?  Absolutely.  Evil demon thing bouncing crazily off the walls?  Certainly.  Nonsensical twist ending?  And how.  Mirrors has them all, but none of them are presented with any originality or creativity.  Plus, the film sells out its own premise.  It should be called Reflections, because the badness can apparently come from any reflection, whether generated by mirrors, water, or presumably the shiny head of a bald man.

It’s certainly no good but, on second thought, maybe I’m judging it too harshly.  Because it certainly couldn’t have lived up to the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen in a mirror:  my naked reflection.  If that didn’t make you shudder, you have nerves of steel.

Email me your favorite horror clichés, praise and mockery at dudeviews@yahoo.com.

Until next time, the Dude is not in.

Movie:  Mirrors

Genre:  Horror

Rating:  R

Running Time: 110 minutes

Dude’s Rating:  Booed

(Dude Brockhaus lives in New Haven, IN where his walls are adorned with Amy Smart posters.)

Dude’s Rating System

Standing Ovation

Hearty Round of Applause

Golf Clap

“Meh” and a Shoulder Shrug

Booed

Lustily Booed and Pelted with Garbage