Now available on both DVD and Blu-ray from Fox Home Entertainment is Alex Aja’s Mirrors. Beyond the break you can read Tex’s review of the Blu-ray release of the film to see if it’s worth picking up. The story follows a security guard at a high-end department store who begins to investigate mysterious deaths occurring in front of the stores’ mirrors. He soon discovers that there are murderous reflections out for revenge.
Alexandre Aja’s MIRRORS arrives on Blu-ray DVD this Tuesday in a pretty thorough special edition. The film follows the story of Ben Carson (Keifer Sutherland)–a former police detective–who moonlights as a night watchman at the Mayflower Department Store. Years earlier the Mayflower burned down killing dozens of people. On his first night on duty, Carson discovers that something is not right inside the burnt out shell of a store. The mirrors appear to be showing the tortured souls of the people who perished in the fire. As Carson tries to uncover the mystery behind the mirrors, he soon discovers that they want more than to simply show the past, they want retribution for it–and they’ll stop at nothing to seek it.

MIRRORS is far from a spotless reflection of Aja’s best work. The French filmmaker wowed international audiences with his back-to-back productions of HIGH TENSION and THE HILLS HAVE EYES. Here, Aja puts the gritty neo-realism of those features on the back burner for a decidedly more supernatural look into the world of horror. The film is a remake of the Korean property INTO THE MIRROR. However, it only keeps the broadest possible plot points from the original production. Aja’s film is saddled with a complicated plot that reveals some glaring holes and a few moments of utter bewilderment. And while the visual stylings and the gruesome effects work do their best to distract the audience from the flaws, the film suffers from one over powering anachronism. (BIG SPOILER AHEAD) If the Mirrors are searching for Anna Esseker and the demon possessing the Mirrors has the ability to leap into any reflective surface, are we really to believe that in the 50-years since her disappearance that Anna Esseker has never been in any situation where her reflection has been cast?

Severe in its imagery and beautiful, if flawed, in it’s execution, MIRRORS can be, and is–at times–a wildly entertaining film. Of course, fans of Aja will want to check it out to keep track of one of the most promising filmmakers working in the genre today. Fans of Sutherland from his LOST BOYS and FLATLINERS past will likely be glad to see the actor back in a horror film.

Special Features

Reflections: The Making of Mirrors (48:35) This is what I’m talking about! I get so tired of studios tiptoeing around making-of documentaries. No one ever wants to go too in-depth on these things. They all just give us these happy EPK puff pieces and it gets boring. I know the general reason this is done is because the further you step away from the 15-minute “featurette” the more complex the issue becomes for the films bottom line (in terms of talent costs and whatnot) but, the truth of the matter is, I don’t care if it costs a studio another 10 or 20 thousands bucks to make a feature-length documentary. If I’m gonna take the time to watch the making of a movie then give me the making-of the damn movie! So, thank you 20th Century Fox, Regency and everyone else for putting together a full-blown look at the creation of MIRRORS. This documentary takes the film from conception and casting all the way through post production. It features interviews with all the main cast members, Director Aja, Writer Gregory Levasseur, the DP, the Editor, a pair of Producers and probably a half-dozen others. The film highlights the work of Greg Nicotero and the crew at KNB Effects, deconstructs the logistical nightmare of shooting a major motion picture about mirrors and not winding up reflecting the crew and all the camera equipment in every frame. It even features a look at the brilliant score by Oscar nominated composer Javier Navarrete (PAN’S LABRYNTH). The cast and crew are allowed to elaborate on what they accomplished while working on the film, what aspects of the original draft script were changed, the construction and destruction of the films massive interior sets and virtually everything else you could care to know about the effort that was taken to bring MIRRORS to fruition. It’s an all-encompassing documentary that will enlighten the experience of watching the film whether you loved the final cut or not.

Behind the Mirror (18:22) Designed to give viewers a broader understanding of the cultural and historical mythology behind mirrors, this mildly interesting featurette is highlighted by a group of interviews with a pair of University folklorists and one “occultist” who delve into the tales of Narcissus, Perseus and Medusa in an effort to take our standardized “seven-years of bad luck” understanding of mirror knowledge to a much more encompassing level.

Deleted Scenes and Alternate Ending (15:32) Features 7 deleted scenes with optional audio commentary from Aja and Levasseur. Most of these omissions focus on further fleshing out the character of Ben Carson. Several of the scenes involve the investigation of the Mayflower Department Store and feature additional interactions between Carson and the day watchman Lorenzo. There is also some additional backstory between Carson and his former partner Larry Byrne as well. Ultimately none of these bits are necessary to the story, even the ones that round out some of the minor loose ends. The most interesting deletion is the alternate ending. There are actually two endings included here. One is a kind of epilogue to the actual ending featured in the film and it is happily been trimmed, as it all but ruins one of the few truly effective moments in the feature. The other is a re-cut finale that omits the final fight sequence and adds in a moment between the character of Ben and his son. The omission of the fight sequence while sounding good on paper (I wasn’t a big fan of the match-up) actually makes the film’s finale feel rushed. However, the moment between Ben and his son is surprisingly well done and could have added a moment of emotional depth to the film. It’s a missed opportunity that the film should have left intact.

Anna Esseker Hospital Footage (5:32) Includes all the 16mm footage used as backstory to illustrate Anna’s suffering. The footage is presented in a home movie style and in and of itself is actually a fully realized, and interesting, story rather than the snippets of screaming and thrashing that we get inserted in the feature.

Animated Storyboard Sequence (1:19) I really can’t understand why this Anamatic is included as a separate feature other than the fact that it illustrates the films most famous sequence–the jaw ripping. This is covered in detail in the documentary and so it feels more like filler here than anything else on the disc.

Bonusview (45:00) The Bonusview feature can be accessed at varying intervals during the film or as a separate entity in the special features section. As a separate viewing experience, it includes 24 chapter stops featuring a barrage of behind the scenes outtakes, storyboards, FX applications providing another birds-eye-view of the production of MIRRORS.

The Second disc provides a digital copy of the film for installation on your latest and greatest portable viewing device!

Film 5/10 or 2