Something’s happened to France’s Alexandre Aja on his way from making 2003’s farmhouse spooker High Tension, one of the most insistently nerve-shredding imports in recent years, to this generic blah of a ghost story. It might be Hollywood, though that hasn’t always been the case: Some of the greatest thriller directors—from Fritz Lang to Roman Polanski—have come from abroad to L.A.’s studios and succeeded, even thrived. Maybe in the case of Aja, we’re seeing a troubling new corporate pattern. When the goal is merely to have 24’s Kiefer Sutherland skulk around a burned-out department store while loud noises spring CGI ghosts from every corner, it’s hard to see the point of fielding foreign visionaries.

Mirrors, a remake from the tired K-horror trend (Kim Sung-ho’s Into the Mirror), is ridiculously bland, given the talent involved. Sutherland’s NYC security guard waves his gun around and mutters things privately like “Gotta get a grip on yourself, Ben,” but Paula Patton, as his estranged wife, is convincingly maternal to their two terrorized tykes. Why are the mirrors evil? Something to do with a starchy nun and a traumatized kid in the 1950s. Frankly, I don’t need a reason, only the technique that’s been hammered out of Aja. He can’t see his own reflection anymore.

Director: Alexandre Aja

Time Out rating: 2/6

Source: Time Out New York Issue 673: August 21-27, 2008