Overall rating: 1/5
Director: Alexandre Aja
Genre: Horror/thriller
Running time: 110'

Ironically, remaking Asian horror movies in Hollywood has come to develop a genre in itself, just as it is in danger of outstaying its welcome. True, at its onset it gave us arguably the most potent onscreen scares in recent memory (The Ring immediately comes to mind), but the most recent offerings charging from the Hollywood production line yield alarmingly diminishing returns - Mirrors, the latest American remake of a South Korean horror flick, is a fine case in point. Unlocking an imagined terrifying feature of some mundane object is again the order of the day, as the title bluntly suggests. "What if the mirrors are reflecting something that's beyond our reality?" protagonist Ben says, displaying a firm grasp of the horror-world it's obvious that the movie is trying to establish. Yes, it does, and it provides a few knee-jerk scares to try and make this all worth your while, but as an audience exercise of purging your demons by confronting them, Mirrors is mediocre at best.

Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland) is a disgraced ex-NYPD detective and recovering alcoholic taking up a job as a night watchman in a once-famed department store. He attempts to piece his life back together, leave his current residence on the sofa in the apartment of his sister Angela (Amy Smart) and get reunited with his wife Amy (Paula Patton) and his children. The department store he guards famously burned down years ago, but retained one of its trade-mark features - there are still mirrors everywhere. The twist is that once they get Ben's reflection they won't leave him be until he completes a task for them, and to make sure he complies, they start terrorising his family.

The premise sounds promising, yet the execution is wayward, flawed, both confusing and confused. The look of the film is a mess of rapid cuts, disorienting lighting or lack thereof and illogical character motivation leading to, well, stupid actions. The scenes don't gel together and despite Sutherland's competent performance, a viewer can hardly be pressed to care or sympathise with a character whom he cannot understand. One also cannot help but notice how Sutherland employs mannerisms that are all too similar to the ones he polished as Jack Bauer in 24. The freedom to do so may be explained in part by the fact that he is also one of the executive producers of the movie, but from the evidence on display here, this job is not his forte. The production feels rushed and patched up, with Bucharest standing in unconvincingly for New York.

Director Alexandre Aja works with a bigger budget than on The Hills Have Eyes or High Tension, but he seems at a loss when it comes to using it. The blood and gore are not scary, but repulsive and downright comical, and the attempt for an atmospheric and menacing look comes accross as irritatingly murky. The bizarre highpoint of the entire proceedings is the onscreen death of one of the main characters, which probably says it all. If you are looking for a good scare at the movies, try something else, anything else. If you are dying to watch Kiefer Sutherland, find a rerun of 24 on TV.