I won't spend any time defending Alexandre Aja because his films most often depend on the material of others, but a movie like Mirrors (2008) shows he does have skills. Talent to create a chilling ambience. Characters turning away from a mirror while the reflection staring back at them seems to take on a mind of its own...in Mirrors they want to kill the humans leaving them behind. The visual tricks are ominous even if the film descends into The Exorcist with mirrors as the centerpiece for more demonic possession leanings. Kiefer Sutherland , to his credit, brings the acting chops, and he has the old standby--family in peril --to lure in cheap sympathy from the audience.
This movie mines the "former NYC cop wrestling with demons" character arc which has always been plum pudding for an actor like Kiefer who does the "wearing baggage of the wear and tear of guilt and damaged conscience" really well. He does so here. He is a security cop who is unfortunately given the job of monitoring this mall with darkened secrets. It involves mirrors and a twisted type of experimental therapy involving aleviating possession through them. If one can be healed of what torments her through removing the evil and placing it behind the prison of mirrors in a particular building, a cure could very well be possible...but it comes with a price because the evil wants out to play. This also uses the "lead character deals with not only demons that manifest themselves but his own" template so many (including his wife) start doubting his mental stability. He even starts doubting his own stability, until his investigative research and detective skills turn up evidence that what is happening with the mirrors stems from a nun holed away from society who will follow him back to the chair which once held her bound, once again encountering the very evil she had been released from.
This movie mines the "former NYC cop wrestling with demons" character arc which has always been plum pudding for an actor like Kiefer who does the "wearing baggage of the wear and tear of guilt and damaged conscience" really well. He does so here. He is a security cop who is unfortunately given the job of monitoring this mall with darkened secrets. It involves mirrors and a twisted type of experimental therapy involving aleviating possession through them. If one can be healed of what torments her through removing the evil and placing it behind the prison of mirrors in a particular building, a cure could very well be possible...but it comes with a price because the evil wants out to play. This also uses the "lead character deals with not only demons that manifest themselves but his own" template so many (including his wife) start doubting his mental stability. He even starts doubting his own stability, until his investigative research and detective skills turn up evidence that what is happening with the mirrors stems from a nun holed away from society who will follow him back to the chair which once held her bound, once again encountering the very evil she had been released from.
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