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Do you ever wonder why it seems that mirrors are so easily cursed? I know I do. Hell, it keeps me up most nights. Blessed be Ulli Lommel for partially answering that question haunting the dusty caverns of my brain. Lacey witnesses her brother Willy brutally murder their mother’s boyfriend. The abusive prick ain’t that happy when the little shits ruin his sexy times with their drunk mama. Sexy times that involve mama pulling her stocking off and placing it over the man’s head, making him resemble John Noble. He does the thing that most boyfriends of drunk mama’s do and ties the kid to his bed after gagging him. Lacey cuts Willy free with a butcher’s knife and it’s goodbye asshole. Also witnessing this traumatic event is a bedroom mirror and said reflecting piece of furniture has a long memory. Twenty years pass and Lacey is now married with a son and Willy is a mute weirdo who hasn’t said one word since the night of the murder. He also collects knives and looks like he’s secretly rubbing one out whilst in public. A letter arrives from their mama about her ailing health and her desire to see them again before she shuffles off this mortal coil. This causes some mental anguish for the siblings. Lacey has some disturbing nightmares and Willy starts painting over all the mirrors. A chat with her psychiatrist (oh my goodness, it’s John Carradine) has her going back to the old family home with her husband Jake to confront her fears. Welp, that mirror’s long memory can be blamed on the spirit of the dead guy who now resides in it. At least, he did. Ya see when Lacey took a gander in the mirror she was startled to see the murdered man coming her way. That shock caused her to smash the damn thing in a panic. As anyone who has ever watched a movie about entities harboring grudges in mirrors could tell you, that evil spirit is now loose in the world and looking to get some killin’ done. Jake, upset with his wife and her mental illness, brings the broken mirror back home, taking the time to put it back together… and Lacey is the crazy one? Shards of the mirror cause possessions of appendages and objects with violent results. The children of the current homeowners of the mother’s house find this out pretty fast. That’s two teen girls and one miserable little shit of a pre-teen boy coming to a supernatural end. Lacey, her family and some folks that just kind of hang around close enough to the mirror shards are up next. Floating pitchforks, death by windowsill, unexpected nipples, a nice John Deere hat, a horse painting, the worst beach party I’ve seen in a bit, the best way to close down the worst beach party I’ve seen in a bit and a nice atmosphere of laziness helps propel this bad boy into a different territory. It’s not boring or anything, it just really comes off like it’s not out to impress you and isn’t going to even try. They gave you John Carradine, some inspired bits of low-rent splatter and a failed exorcism… what more do you want? Add a score that sounds like traveling through space with John Carpenter’s not-quite-as-talented twin and a level of sleaze that just steams but never bubbles over and this one comes off as the right kind of odd. Like Bill Rebane by way of Lamberto Bava. Beautiful Suzanna Love makes for a likable lead and, in fact, the whole cast is way better than one would expect in this area of genre films. The opening stretch takes its time but there’s enough slice-of-life vibes with an undercurrent of doom to keep things enjoyable before the broken mirror lets all the awfulness in.
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