Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

GL84 After moving into a new house, a woman and her family are confronted with a series of bizarre and increasingly more frightening visions that she finds is connected to a long-forgotten mystery involving the previous residents of the house.This was quite a decent if troubling effort. One of its' better tactics is the use of photographs for the mirror which amounts to some of the better scenes in here. Among the better ones is the first attempt as the flashing light distorts the husbands face into a demonic figure while a second figure is seen in the mirror, the same distortion attempts plague the second photographs while the final attempt manages to feature plenty of utterly creepy images on everyone in the photographs before throwing a rather impressive freak-out that comes out of nowhere for a pretty exciting scene. Other big scenes are based highly on the tactic of throwing frightening visuals around at the most unexpected times which includes scenes as the sequence with the old woman across the hall which gets quite frantic with the house search with all the blood found throughout while also focusing on those reality distortion that have been utilized throughout here as well as numerous scenes of rattling windows and shimmering light which is the best part going for the film. The other big positive here is the rather enjoyable back-story which is pretty creepy in its own right before getting to the gradual investigation with the notebook and the water-style filtering on the scene for a truly enjoyable set-piece for the scenes which is enough to help this one out against its damaging flaws. The film's biggest factor against it is the rather toned-down feeling that flows throughout here. The bore and brutality from the kills are so down-played from what their initially could've been considering the actions within which is all based on the toned-down feeling exhibited by the rest of the film. The main part of the storyline here furthers that toned down feeling as it feels more in line with typical Lifetime Channel fare by introducing such topics as her actively questioning whether or not she's insane by imaging everything around her or actually happening which is a common staple in such films. Likewise, this includes the themes of the middle section where she begins investigating the source of the flashing victims throughout, which goes along with the other flaws on display to hold this one down.Rated R: Violence and Language.

bobvend This third-rate rip-off of The Shining (and about two dozen other horror thrillers) trucks out every conceivable cliché one can imagine. As far as the story about insufferable yuppies moving into a house in which strange goings-on are going on, we've seen this all before...and done much better than this derivative turkey. Too bad. This is actually an interesting premise but it's all handled so poorly with little imagination or originality. The characters are so cardboard and annoying- especially the I'm-too-sexy-for-myself neighbor- one almost hopes they get clocked! Just when we think the film is about to partially redeem itself with a satisfying conclusion, it's a let-down. Don't waste your time.

Kenneth Anderson Few things are more frustrating than a horror film that fails to do right by its premise. "Dark Mirror" has a lot going for it initially: an earthy, expressive lead actress (the wonderful Lisa Vidal), a contemporary haunted house plot with lots of potential, and a cast of strange neighbors and red herrings. Unfortunately, after a pretty good start that has Vidal, her dull, stiff of a husband and their bland son moving into a new home and things going wrong right away, the movie develops a case of "the stupids." Vidal and husband clearly have some domestic issues they're working through, but to goose up the suspense the writers see fit to have him doubt every little thing she says from the start to an annoying degree. "I know that woman!" Vidal says when she sees the face of a missing person on TV. "Are you sure?" says supportive husband. What? Wouldn't the natural response be something like "Really, you met this woman? Maybe we should tell someone." I know he's supposed to think she is losing it, but we as an audience need some normalcy before they jump into later plot points that should develop over the course of the film. As the film progresses and the wife grows increasingly certain that the house is haunted, the number of these kind of exchanges grow tiresomely frequent. Another complaint: The movie can't make up its mind what it wants to be and as such makes little sense. Part ghost story (what's with the ghost mom who is of no help?), part sleuthing mystery (the story behind the former owners of the house not only remains unsolved but the motivations don't connect with the puzzle), and what's with the Chinese spirituality and its complete lack of connection with the mysterious artist theme and her Latina roots?SPOILERSAs "Dark Mirror" moves towards its big reveal in the latter scenes, the overall shock is undermined by the dumb actions of the characters. The husband suspects the wife is losing her mind and possibly a homicidal maniac, but he thinks nothing of leaving their defenseless and easily spooked child alone with her as he puts in fourteen hour work days where he apparently keeps his fingers crossed that she won't murder any of the neighbors before he comes home.Also, the cops in their neighborhood are so inept they must be the LAPD...several people die within feet of this household and no one questions the housewife who is there all day and might have seen something. Really, at the end there is this laugh out loud scene when an inspector enters a bloody bedroom, examines the damage and then has to have the blood trail pointed out to him...a two foot wide trail of blood virtually blocking the entryway he obviously had to step over to get into the room. Incredible.On the plus side, I gotta say I can't fault Lisa Vidal with anything. She is a wonderfully natural actress and actually makes her virtual nothing role into something interesting. She is the only reason I was even motivated to stick around for the conclusion."Dark Mirror" is just another one of the recent slate of horror films that are all concept and no brains.

dbborroughs Woman moves into a new house and takes a photo in a mirror with a mirror behind her and unleashes a doppelganger from a mirror world. Or something. Unremarkable thriller hits all of the right notes for a story like this but doesn't add anything new to the sub-genre of horror film involving mirrors or alternate worlds. If you've seen any number of similar films you'll know what to expect. In all honesty its not a bad film, its just not a particularly remarkable one. I was kind of hoping for something special because the film was released by IFC Films which tends to release films that have some form of something that's different. This is simply a well done, but run of the mill horror film