- Directed by Mike Flanagan
- Written by Mike Flanagan, Jeff Howard, Jeff Seidman
- Stars Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 44 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYJrxezWLUk
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was an interesting one, switching back and forth smoothly between what already happened to the main characters when they were kids and what’s happening to them now. There are lots of cool visuals. And the story pulls you along wondering if the good guys will win in the end.
Synopsis
A little girl with blood on her face watches a man carry a gun around the house. Kaylie and her brother Tim try to get out of the house, and the little boy sees a ghostly woman in the room with them. Tim describes the dream to Dr. Graham– he’s never fired the gun in his dream before. Tim is discharged from the mental hospital with the approval of Graham.
Kaylie goes to an auction and sees a mirror go up for sale. Afterwards, she goes to pick up Tim from the mental hospital. She says that she’s got the mirror, at least for a few days. She wants to keep their promise– and kill it. She takes him to a motel room and gets annoyed that he seems to have forgotten what happened. Still, she needs his help.
We flashback to them as children moving to a new house. We see the same mirror being carried into the new place. Mother Marie thinks the mirror is too ugly for Alan’s office, but it’s his office, and he wants it. That night, he sees a weird woman with glowing eyes in the room– but only for a second.
In the present, Kaylie wakes up in the middle of the night and looks at the creepy mirror. She’s attacked by her father– no, just a nightmare. Her fiance Michael doesn’t understand what her deal is, and she doesn’t really try to explain it to him– “just bear with me a day or two more.” She works for the auction house and puts through a repair order on the cracked mirror, but she really just wants to take it home. “You must be hungry,” she says to it.
In the past, Marie notices that all her houseplants are dying. Alan starts hearing voices from the mirror. Kaylie sees the weird woman with her father.
In the present, Kaylie takes Tim back to their parent’s former home. They carry the evil mirror inside and set it up. She’s got cameras and video equipment set up to watch the thing. She’s hooked up a boat anchor on a timer that will swing down and destroy the mirror as a “kill switch.” The timer has to be manually reset every 30 minutes or by default it will be smashed.
Kaylie turns on the cameras and explains her plan to the videos. She seems very prepared as if she’s been getting ready for this for years. She tells how the mirror is responsible for at least 45 deaths since the earliest time when she could trace it back. She relates the history of the owners of the mirror, all of whom have died badly. Her explanation clearly upsets Tim.
Tim thinks they made up the story to explain why their father was a murderer, but Kaylie doesn’t accept that. Alan killed Marie, and then Tim shot and killed Alan. Tim went to the mental hospital, and Kaylie went to an orphanage. Tim asks why they don’t just break the mirror, and she says go for it. The thing is indestructible. He picks up a stool to smash the mirror, but then he gets distracted and puts it down. For some reason, the mirror doesn’t allow itself to be destroyed.
Back in the past, Alan takes off a bandaid. Twice. But he’s really pulling his own fingernail off. Except that wasn’t real. The mirror makes him see weird things. His books start getting moved around, and he blames the kids. Alan buys a gun because Marie saw someone in his office. That night, they argue. The dog does not like something in Alan’s office and barks continually. When they lock the dog in the office, the dog vanishes.
Every time Kaylie tells the story of what happened, Tim comes up with some kind of psychological reason why she’s misremembering things. She’s got a dog in a cage right next to the mirror. The psychologists have convinced Tim that nothing really happened, and now he thinks that she’s the one who’s unhinged.
He’s almost got her convinced when all her equipment gets turned around, the plants in the room have died. When they play the tape back, they are the ones who did all that. It’s tricked them somehow, so now they’re doubting everything they see.
In the past, Marie starts drinking heavily and staring into the mirror. She starts getting paranoid about Alan’s comings and goings. She wants to know more about the woman in Alan’s office. Both kids have seen her; she’s seducing Alan. Marie sees scary things in the mirror. She then chases the children and attacks Alan until he chokes her out. He calls 911, but not really because the mirror only made him think he called them.
It soon becomes clear that no one, in the past or the present, can tell real reality from whatever the mirror is projecting in their minds. Kaylie bites into an apple and then realizes it’s really a light bulb– except it’s really just an apple after all. Young Kaylie goes in to see her mother, who’s been locked in her room for a while and finds her chained to the wall with no teeth. She calls a doctor, but they’ll only talk to their father. Multiple calls all get the same voice– they know it’s not a real doctor.
In all the confusion, Kaylie ends up stabbing Michael, who just sort of showed up out of nowhere. Then Michael calls on the phone, “just checking in to see how everything’s going.” Did she really just kill her fiance? All signs point to yes.
In the present, they run outside to phone for help, but they see themselves inside standing in front of the mirror. When they call 911 again, the operator tells them to have their father call.
In the past, we see Alan loading his revolver. Kaylie wants to smash the mirror with a golf club. The past and present start to parallel themselves as both versions of Tim and Kaylie have to hide from their parents and the scary woman– as well as some other ghosts.
Back in the past, ALan shoots Marie a couple of times and then comes after the kids. The two kids attack the mirror with golf clubs, but they end up missing completely since the mirror is tricky. Alan attacks Kaylie, and Tim grabs the gun. Tim shoots Alan but only with Alan’s assistance. And that’s where the crack in the mirror happened. Then a whole room full of ghosts appear.
Back in the present, Tim wakes up. Kaylie talks to Marie, who is now inside the mirror. People keep standing in front of the mirror, and we can see the timer on the anchor counting down. Tim sets off the booby-trap, and it kills Kaylie instead of the mirror.
The police arrive and take Tim back to the mental hospital; he won’t be getting out this time. He screams “It was the mirror,” but the police don’t believe him now any more than they did ten years ago.
Commentary
There are lots of little visual things going on that you have to be paying attention in order to catch. We start out seeing creepy weird stuff, but after a while, Tim’s justifications and explanations for everything make that all doubtful.
The casting of the two kids is really good– they really look like younger versions of Karen Gillen and Brenton Thwaites. The cinematography, with the past and present swapping back and forth, often multiple times in the same scene, really works.
It’s quite good!