Mirrors

It would have been better as a short, or at least at a brisk 90 minutes instead of two hours, but that doesn't diminish the fact that Mirrors is the rare horror film that deserves to be seen in a theatre. After the Saw movies diminished the genre (they look worse than a CGI episode), director Alexandre Aja's understanding of the cinematic form makes horror exciting. As Ben, a cop who retired after accidentally killing a colleague, Kiefer Sutherland adds dimension to his on-edge hero from 24. The horrors he sees in mirrors are a metaphor for the part of himself he no longer trusts, the appearance he's afraid to examine. Aja keeps the silliness impactful by having Ben constantly barraged with reflective surfaces. Taking a job as a security guard at a burnt-down department store, Ben patrols the one-time glamourous mall that's become a cathedral of death. Aja knows the difference between a scary human face and a terrifying one. His beautifully shot horror movie, replete with dazzling opening credits, is more contemplative than it is well-constructed. The J-horror tendency (it's a remake of a Korean film) of slowing things to a crawl gets in the way of the dementia he really excels at. Without being entirely successful, Mirrors carries great sequences.