Mirror of Death (1988) (USA)

aka Dead of Night 

⭐️⭐️

Sara suffers from the scuzzy treatment of her abusive boyfriend Bobby. She finally leaves his awful ass after taking a beating when she finds him in bed with another woman (a highly effective scene that plays out over a black screen with the thankfully brief audio awfulness running over it) and goes to stay with her older sister April and April’s boyfriend Dick. Fortuitously, April recently received a book on black magic from a friend at a party (a party that you can tell just reeks of cigarettes and cocaine) and Sara gives a go to putting it to good (justifiably evil) use. She actually mages to conjure up a dark spirit from a mirror and it proceeds to possess her meek ass, turning her into a seductress who focuses her murderous appetite on horny men… good for her! She takes to the streets of Los Angeles and peruses the kind of poorly-lit dives I’d frequent, picking up despicable men with little effort. Sure makes her violent work easy and with the spastic dance moves she shows off it’s understandable. I don’t think it’s seduction, it may be awful men thinking they have an easy mark in a skanky person who may be intellectually disabled. Awkward lovemaking leads to awkward murders and budget makeup provides something that was supposed to be frightening but only comes off as charmingly daft. Sara doesn’t remember what she’s doing when the spirit takes hold and her sister and Dick try to figure out what the hell is happening. Very special effects bring some much-needed laughs but don’t get featured anywhere near enough. There’s also a bicycle-riding exorcist named John Smith and the dark spirit’s name is Sura which had me giggling for some reason. When not blasting our ears with the intense synthetic beats, the score sounds like something that would have been playing over an add for hemorrhoid treatment (when the sufferer is finally able to ride a tandem bike with his wife again) and it fits well with a film that seems to be the work of a commercial director who thought they’d give a go at horror. I had to check multiple times that this wasn’t some lame-ass Italian export made to launder Mafia money, it’s American but it’s got that vibe… it still may have been used to launder Mafia money. Dangerous Seductress would do it waaaaaay better in a few years.