Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Who’s the Most Overwrought of All?
There’s something deeply ironic about Mirrors (2008), a film about reflections that never manages to reflect any original thought. Directed by Alexandre Aja — the man who once gave us the gloriously bloody High Tension and the enjoyably unhinged Piranha 3D — this supernatural misfire feels like the cinematic equivalent of staring into a dirty mirror and realizing you’re watching your own disappointment in real time.
It stars Kiefer Sutherland as a haunted ex-cop with the emotional range of a microwaved potato, Paula Patton as his ex-wife whose sole function is to look exasperated, and Amy Smart in a jaw-dropping (literally) cameo that will make you wish mirrors were illegal.
If you ever wondered what 24’s Jack Bauer would look like if he fought his own reflection instead of terrorists — congratulations, this movie exists.
The Plot: Shattered Logic, Polished Nonsense
The premise sounds promising on paper: cursed mirrors that reflect evil and kill people by forcing their reflections to act out violent acts that manifest in real life. It’s creepy, it’s symbolic, it’s… completely nonsensical once the movie starts explaining itself.
Kiefer plays Ben Carson, a disgraced New York City detective who lands a gig as a night security guard at a burned-out department store called the Mayflower. Why anyone would hire a traumatized ex-cop to guard a building that looks like the inside of Satan’s basement is beyond me, but here we are.
The Mayflower, naturally, is full of mirrors — because when you’re turning a cursed psychiatric hospital into a shopping mall, you definitely want reflective surfaces. Ben soon starts seeing spooky things in the glass, his sister dies horribly via self-inflicted jaw-removal (the most memorable thing in the entire film), and before long, he’s muttering the name “Esseker” like it’s his Wi-Fi password.
From there, the movie devolves into a wild goose chase through asylums, convents, and exposition dumps so dense they should count as cardio. There’s a demon in the mirrors! Or a girl named Anna Esseker! Or both! Honestly, by the end, I wasn’t sure if the mirrors were cursed, possessed, or just really passive-aggressive.
Kiefer Sutherland: The Man, The Scowl, The Legend
Kiefer Sutherland approaches Mirrors with the same intensity he brought to 24, except instead of saving America, he’s saving his family from bad CGI. His performance can best be described as “paranoid dad energy” — equal parts yelling, sweating, and staring at reflective surfaces like they owe him money.
You can almost see the gears turning behind his furrowed brow as he tries to make sense of the script. Kiefer spends half the movie shouting at mirrors, which, to be fair, is how most people felt watching the film.
He’s so perpetually on edge that even his reflection looks tired. Every time he says “Esseker,” it sounds less like a clue and more like a cry for help.
Amy Smart’s Jaw-Dropping Performance (Pun Intended)
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the one scene that actually works — and it’s over in two minutes. Amy Smart, as Ben’s sister, gets one of the most grotesque deaths in early-2000s horror history.
Her reflection grabs her face and slowly tears her lower jaw clean off. It’s disgusting, horrifying, and genuinely effective — mostly because it comes out of nowhere and the rest of the movie never reaches that level of creativity again.
It’s as if the film blew its entire imagination budget in one sequence and spent the next 90 minutes filming Kiefer Sutherland staring sadly into puddles.
Paula Patton: The Real Victim Here
Paula Patton plays Amy, Ben’s ex-wife, who spends the film alternating between skepticism, terror, and deep regret that she signed on for this project. Her character is the emotional anchor of the film — or at least she would be if the script didn’t forget she existed for entire stretches.
She exists mainly to yell “Ben!” from across the house or clutch their children while mirrors do weird stuff. There’s a subplot about her trying to protect their son from his reflection, but by that point, the film’s internal logic has shattered into as many pieces as the mirrors themselves.
Patton does her best, but you can tell she’s wondering if she can escape through one of those reflective portals herself.
The Horror: A Hall of Mirrors Without the Fun
Alexandre Aja is known for stylish brutality and tension, but Mirrors feels like he accidentally filmed a perfume commercial for Satan. Everything glows ominously, reflections shimmer, and the soundtrack wails like a Gregorian chant stuck in a feedback loop.
It’s technically polished but emotionally hollow — a shiny, screaming exercise in overproduction. The scares are predictable, the pacing drags, and the film mistakes “loud” for “scary.”
Instead of building dread, it just throws reflections at you. There’s a mirror in the bathroom! The mirror in the store! The mirror in your soup spoon! It’s death by overexposure, both literally and figuratively.
And when the film finally explains the curse — something about a demon trapped in the mirror because of a little girl named Anna Esseker — it feels less like a revelation and more like a cry for mercy.
The Ending: The Twist That Nobody Asked For
By the time Ben drags poor Anna Esseker (Mary Beth Peil, bless her) back to the cursed building and straps her to a chair surrounded by mirrors, you can sense the movie sprinting toward its finale just to get it over with.
There’s an explosion, the demon jumps back into the mirrors, and Kiefer Sutherland presumably dies — except wait, no, he wakes up, stumbles through the rubble, and realizes he’s the reflection now.
Yes, the big twist is that Kiefer is trapped inside Mirror World. It’s meant to be profound — a tragic fate for our flawed hero. Instead, it feels like a punchline: a literal reflection of the movie itself — empty, confused, and trapped in a dimension where logic doesn’t exist.
If there’s a hell for horror movie protagonists, it probably looks exactly like this ending: endless mirrors, infinite screaming, and no exit.
Production Values: A Shiny Disaster
Let’s give credit where it’s due: Mirrors looks expensive. The cinematography is slick, the production design is moody, and the reflections are crisp enough to check for popcorn in your teeth.
Unfortunately, all that polish just highlights how hollow everything else is. The film takes itself so seriously that it forgets to have fun — or scares. It’s like someone tried to make The Sixth Sense but accidentally downloaded the plot of Final Destination.
Even the CGI feels overdone — the reflections move too smoothly, the gore too clean. It’s the kind of horror movie that desperately wants to be deep, but every time it tries, it slips on its own symbolism.
Final Verdict: Cracked Beyond Repair
Mirrors isn’t the worst horror movie of the 2000s, but it’s definitely one of the most frustrating. It has all the ingredients for greatness — a creepy concept, a solid director, and Kiefer Sutherland’s perpetual scowl — yet somehow manages to turn them into cinematic mush.
It’s too serious to be fun, too silly to be scary, and too long to justify its own reflection. Watching it feels like arguing with a bathroom mirror: exhausting, confusing, and a little embarrassing when you realize you’re still there an hour later.
1.5 out of 5 stars.
Half a star for the jaw scene, half for Paula Patton’s patience, and half for the sheer effort it must have taken to say “Esseker” that many times with a straight face.
If you want horror that really gets under your skin, look elsewhere. Mirrors is all surface — shiny, cracked, and reflecting nothing but regret.
