Mirrors

Alexandre Aja has taken inspiration from the Korean film Into the Mirror for this psychological horror movie. Here, it's the tale of a New York City cop named Ben (Kiefer Sutherland) who leaves the force in disgrace, then pretty much loses his wife (Paula Patton) and seeks comfort in a bottle of liquor.

He takes a new job as a night watchman at a fire-wrecked department store that has a somewhat creepy history: a former life as a mental hospital, a lunatic doctor, unexplained deaths, the suicide of the former watchman... you get the picture.

Ben is soon disturbed by the way the building's mirrors throw back his reflection, distorted and eerie, and how strange handprints appear on their surfaces. Naturally, he decides he must work out what the hot damn diggery is going on here before the spooky mirror-ghosts attack his family.

There's the air of a cult classic to this ludicrous creepfest, but also a sense of what might have been. Aja's portrait of the empty department store is impressively spine-chilling, for instance, but the droning stupidity that follows renders Mirrors more tedious than horrible. ·