Customer Reviews

Dark Mirror

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First time director, Pablo Proenza brings a dash originality and a nice hint of film making skill to 2009's independent thriller, Dark Mirror. A film about a lonely house wife Deborah (Lisa Vidal) that is going through the motions of moving into a huge new house and spending most of her time alone in it while her husband Jim (David Chisum)is away at work. All of this alone time gives Deborah a little too much time spent in her own head, and after she takes a photo of her bathroom mirror, she begins seeing things around her house that cause her to question her sanity. It's not the most original of stories,but you will find yourself engaged in this tale either way. There is some very solid acting, mainly from Vidal, who's Deborah character caries the film on her shoulders, and Vidal is quite capable of carrying the heavy load. When Chism is on screen, he brings some solid game too, and some of the best scenes involve interaction between Deborah and Jim, as they have some great back and forth banter guided by some witty and well written dialogue.

There is some impressive film making to be found at times throughout Dark Mirror. Shot on Super 16, it is a crisp looking film considering it is very low budget, the camerawork is solid with a feeling of claustrophobia as you are trapped in the house along side the Deborah character. There is also some very cool and different looking visual effects to portray the supernatural aspects of Dark Mirror, and one of the cooler effects is when Deborah takes the photo of the bathroom mirror and it has a ripple effect with a constant flash from her camera's flash bulb as it goes throughout the mirror's multiple dimensions.

Overall, Dark Mirror is a solid afternoon supernatural thriller, that is worth a look for what it achieves with its meager budget. Outside of the great opening scene (that I will keep to myself!), there's almost no violence in the film, nor is there much blood spilt, and while some of the deaths are a little on the weak side, Dark Mirror is enjoyable for a number of reasons. While I enjoyed this movie, and I am a dude, I would feel comfortable in saying that Dark Mirror is a film that may be great for woman, as it covers themes that many women in Deborah's position can relate to.

If horror is your game, then this is right up your alley. It's got some good creeps and thrills, twists and turns, and adds an interesting perspective to the genre with feminist undertones. The character of Deborah, played by Lisa Vidal, has to come to terms with being a mother and a wife and what that means in a society today. Not a theme you'll often find in this type of film. Well done, especially with such a short shoot time and low budget. Give it a whirl, like so many others have done on IFC On Demand. You won't be disappointed. :)

Dark Mirror is one best horror flicks of 2009! It's scary but not the usual, banal 'blood and gore' scary - it's a Polanski kind of scary, a thinking person's horror film. The performances are fantastic and Lisa Vidal is mesmerizing. The scene in the bathroom where she's trying to convince her husband something is wrong with the house is absolutely brilliant - the kind of scene that is truly unforgettable, in that wonderfully unsettling way. Curious to see what this director does next because his talent really shines through despite the limitations of a presumably small budget. I think horror fans will definitely dig this flick - but I also think anyone who likes creative and intelligent filmmaking will appreciate it as well.

Some will undoubtedly compare Dark Mirror to films like Aja's Mirrors or Álex de la Iglesia's La habitación del niño (Baby's Room) but not to worry as it just doesn't have the carnage (or over-the-top scene chewing of Sutherland) contained in Mirrors or the intensity of Baby's Room. I didn't dislike the characters in Dark Mirror; on the contrary, aside from Christine Lakin's unconvincing turn as next door neighbor Tammy, I found the characters to be reasonably likable, especially Lisa Vidal's Deborah. The real problem I had with Dark Mirror was that there just wasn't any discernible scare factor here, I experienced almost no tension at all and the noticeably low budget effects didn't help.

In my opinion the story felt a bit awkward and I was more than a little put off by the super convenient plot devices that occasionally popped up, like a found diary basically telling us everything we need to know. Things like that were a bit frustrating after awhile. All in all it had a very, inoffensive made-for-DVD feel to it which isn't necessarily a negative thing; the lack of tension, occasionally cartoonish character and convoluted story really made this film hard to recommend to those looking for a serious horror fix but I must admit that Lisa Vidal did a great job and really brought life to her character, making Dark Mirror just barely tolerable. Hit or miss.

This movie centers around a photographer who moves into a new home (with her family), then comes to believe that by photographing someone, that person will soon die. Obviously, there are questions of real cause and effect, insanity, reality, etc. The movie is generally well done, good production values, high image quality, etc., such that it feels high-ish budget (and that's a compliment). The mood throughout is creepy, and almost relentlessly so, never abating to anything else. The problem though, is that the film is never really scary. Sequences occur in which I think the director intended to elicit a scare among the audience, but it fails to do so in every scene. Not sure exactly why, but the climactic build just didn't work, and I do scare fairly easily. Bottom line, its a worthy rental, just don't expect an earth shattering horror.

Dark Mirror is a decent effort at horror/thriller/suspense with a limited budget. By appearances and performances alone one would think this movie's budget was much more than the shoestring budget it probably had. Lisa Vidal is exotic and interesting as a bored housewife moving into a new home. When she takes a photo in a mirror, she soon realizes there are abnormalities in the glass reflections. She's tense throughout, but there is no tension. She's rattled enough to frantically search for, and compulsively suck on, numerous cigarettes. But it's never really that bad. Her limp, and stereotypical skeptical, husband is no more than a seat filler.

It's one of those movies that has a lot of unrealized potential that would have been better in more competent hands. As it is, however, there are no scares, zero dread, and a feeling that it's much longer than it really is...which is not a good thing.

There were some scenes that were done well enough that it creeps you out and is definitely suspenseful. Unfortunately, there are many more scenes that are poorly done and just plain annoying or cheesy. The mystery of the house, the history of the house, the windows and the caped person were better aspects of the film.

Some scenes were overdone, such as the scene where the woman is banging on her window. They are obviously trying to put the focus on the main character's "confusion" while having the woman banging the window in the background, but all I kept thinking when I saw it was that it was so stupid that she was banging on the window like that. She was overreacting and it did not seem realistic at all in my opinion. Some scenes were fake looking and others were just silly. I was really interested in the people she took pictures of ending up missing, but in the end there is not really an adequate reason as to why this happened.

The main character was very annoying, and frankly, just acted stupid throughout the movie. I got the feeling they were trying to make it into this situation where we are caught up in the main character's confusion and identifying with her, but I found it hard to do that because I was distracted by her annoying actions. She finds a painting of what looks like a dead naked woman and what does she do? Hangs it on the wall. I am also a little sick of movies portraying women main characters as having a son that she is very attached to (what is with this? The Ring, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, Double Jeopardy, just to name a few). Not to mention the whole "evil ghost" thing. It is interesting to watch but it is certainly not one of the better thrillers out there.

If you enjoy Asian horror, and are tired of endless Americanized remakes of Asian films, I think you'll really enjoy Dark Mirror. It's an American (indie) film, but it has all the elements of a good Asian ghost story--there is a quiet, slow build-up of darkness and dread, a wrathful ghost who metes out punishment to all who enter her domain, and a blurring of the lines between reality and imagination that makes us question what really happened to the very end.

A new home in a new city promises a new start for photographer Deborah Martin, who longs to escape from being a homemaker and return to her artistic career. Fitting then, that she has moved into the home of a famous painter, Rupert Wells and his wife, Eleanor. But the painter and his family went mysteriously missing, and one by one, the neighbors are going missing, too. Deborah is convinced that the disappearances are tied to her home, which has strange passageways and hidden clues. Unless she can decipher the puzzle and learn the true fate of the painter's family, she and her husband [James Chisum] and son [Joshua Pelegrin] may face the same fate.

Dark Mirror works on several levels, creating an disturbing atmosphere and intriguing puzzles. There is the story of Deborah, and her struggle to find herself again, to regain her identity as an artist. There is the parallel between Eleanor and Deborah, and the effect it has on Deborah's mind. And there is the puzzle of the house, and the secrets that Rupert and Eleanor hid within its walls and its otherworldly recesses. Good acting and effective pacing enhance the storyline, drawing us in and building in us the same curiosity and dread that Deborah experiences. Overall, Dark Mirror is a refreshing addition to the horror genre, especially in this era of remakes and sequels; it is nice to see that someone can draw upon the themes and styles of foreign horror and do more than create yet another unnecessary remake.

Dark Mirror (Pablo Proenza, 2009)

I've been sitting here all day writing good-to-great reviews of things like The Maltese Falcon and Black Swan, so it's almost a relief to get to a film that I can without reservation call a pathetic piece of crap. And I readily admit that this is not nearly as bad a movie as that would make it out to be; it's paling in comparison to the company it's been keeping on my retinas. It's not the worst movie I watched that weekend, even (that would be the execrable 2008 remake of It's Alive), but it's derivative, badly-acted and -directed and all-around silly. You deserve better than this. Give me a few and I'll tell you how you can get it.

Deborah Martin (Star Trek's Lisa Vidal) is a former photographer who gave up her career to get married and start a family. The batch of them, Deborah, husband Jim (Flight of the Living Dead's David Chisum), and son Ian (Joshua Pelegrin in his first and, to date, last big-screen role), are moving out to the country to get away from it all. They look at an endless succession of houses, but there's one that they step into, and immediately Deborah is taken with it. (You've heard this before, right?) After dithering on so many other houses, when she says "we'll take it", Jim is thrilled he can finally stop looking at houses, and they do. Deborah soon learns that the house was originally inhabited by a reclusive, possibly crazy, painter who may or may not have killed his entire family and hidden them somewhere in the house. More importantly, their spirits may be trapped in the house's mirrors. (You've heard this before, right?)

It gets better. The big twist ending has been done to death. In fact, the movie is often compared, and never favorably, to a classic flick that has the same twist ending. It's also been done more recently in two excellent movies, and I'm not even considering the genre classic that started it all, and the almost-as-excellent homage to it that came out thirty years later. (I'm avoiding names in order to avoid spoilers; if you want to know the films I'm talking about, they'll be at the bottom of the review after spoiler space.) As well as, naturally, any number of dozens of movies that have tried it and failed miserably. This is only one of a huge crop. It doesn't help that few of the actors in this movie are any good, and those who are are relegated to stereotype roles at best (Lupe Ontiveros is the most visible member of this cast in that regard). Writer/director Pablo Proenza was working on his first feature-length movie. He's not an awful director, and maybe if he'd had some original material and a few decent actors to work with, he might have come up with something worthwhile. This ain't it. **

POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW

For the record, and if this roster doesn't give away the twist ending, then I can't help you.

"In fact, the movie is often compared, and never favorably, to a classic flick that has the same twist ending." (Roman Polanski's Repulsion.) "It's also been done more recently in two excellent movies," (I'm thinking specifically of Naboer and Black Swan, though I'm sure you can come up with half a dozen others) "and I'm not even considering the genre classic that started it all, and the almost-as-excellent homage to it that came out thirty years later." (Psycho, of course, and Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre.)

I am usually skeptical of made-for-the channel movies, unless it's like HBO. IFC apparently made this, and I thought it was pretty good. It has some original scares and plot ideas, or at least I didn't notice any cliches. This is probably the best 'mirror' movie made in modern times, very much surpassing the theater movies 'Mirrors' and another I think I saw recently. They sure did more with less. It wasn't dirty either. They stuck to the story and it was all supernatural. Those looking to see another nudey flick with dumb characters you hope will get killed off, with just a minor horror subplot, will have to look elsewhere. I didn't like the woman playing the lead, though. I do not like that ER show she's in and I think she's ugly and kind of stupid. Her mouth hangs open almost the entire time. Sign of a low IQ. I guess you get who you get for a low budget flick, but the money they saved went into a good script and decent effects.