Dark Mirror (2007): The Good, the Bad and the Reflective Synopsis: A husband and wife, along with their young son, move into a new house that has a dark past. An old secret that lingers in the glass and mirrors of the house must be revealed before it is too late.The Good: The story is a somewhat intriguing one, even if it is clumsily executed. The idea is that "entities" can get trapped within glass or mirrors. Okay, that's kind of a cool idea. Not completely original, but yeah... we can work with that. The additional concept added is that of the protagonist, being a fledgling photographer, inadvertently captures the entity in her camera lens when she (rather inexplicably) takes a photo of her bathroom mirror. (Not sure I ever figured out why she was taking a picture of her bathroom mirror.... high def selfie?) Despite the fact that the story dissolves from here for me, the concept is quite interesting. The woman realizes, all too late, that if she takes a photo of someone, they wind up dead. Somehow the flash releases(?) the entity and they die. A lot could have been done with this idea, but the director's script and execution burdens the movie's progress of the idea. Sadly, you are left with a good concept and nothing more.The Bad: The movie is a slow burner, which can be good if the film is moving forward with solid character development. That, unfortunately, doesn't happen. The protagonist wife sees all the creepy stuff in the mirrors, while the husband is painted as the nauseatingly typical "it's all in your mind" horror stereotype. Even when shown things that cannot be explained and the Average Joe husband would say, "Wow, that is some abnormal junk right there", he shrugs it off and allows for the wife to become further "in this by herself". It's a tired device for allowing more of the overly used "OMG... I just saw a dark figure in the window" tricks. Used over and over in the movie for cheap "scares" that don't work, it exhausts the movie far too early and you are left caring little for the ending... you just want it to end. And it's too bad, because the ending is somewhat clever. The problem is that it takes far too long to set up the reasoning for all the happenings. See, the true story is that the house was owned by an artist who was passing his wife's paintings as his own and their deaths are the source of the evil entity. Nice little plot, however, they spend far too long on the protagonist figuring this all out that it ultimately loses any effect it may have had on the viewer. Kind of a shame. For me, this movie got bogged down by trying to do too much and even with so much to do, still found a way to be boring. That is a script issue and the reason it gets a "4" from me.The Reflective: The word "reflective" is a bit of an oxymoron in the context of this movie, because while the film centers around reflections and windows and mirrors, the director never reflected on how boring and obtrusive his script was turning out. The tone of the whole movie just felt too much like something made for the Lifetime channel. The pacing was horrible and just when something interesting would happen, the director would slow it right back down. The problem has less to do with the idea (which should drive the movie) and more do with the direction, flow and execution of the idea. There was real promise at some point when this idea was being fleshed out, but the director ruined it by trying to turn this into something too cerebral for its own good. The result is a movie I'd obviously never watch again and in a few weeks, I will have forgotten entirely that I ever did watch it.

****SPOILERS*** What's obviously an updated re-make of the 1946 thriller "The Dark Mirror" with Olivia De Havilland & Lew Aryes the film "Dark Mirror" has to do with housewife and part time professional photographer Deb Martin, Lisa Vidal, who becomes so obsessed with a mirror in her new home that it drives her over the edge or deep end by the time the movie is over. The mirror somehow interacts with Ded's camera after she casually took a photo of it. It's then that everyone she photographs ends up disappearing off the face the earth!Things get really weird when Deb's mom Grace, Lupe Ontiveros, shows up unexpectedly at the house with all these crazy stories of it being possessed by the ghost of it's previous owner an artist who also together with his wife dropped completely out of sight. It's then that Dob's workaholic husband Jim, David Chisum,starts to worry about her in that she may have a few screws loose upstairs: It turns out that Deb's mom Grace has been dead for the last five years! We get to see Ded slowly lose it when everyone she photographs starts to get edited out of the movie. As if they were somehow swallowed up in an other plane of existence. Even the police are puzzled in what's going on with all those that disappeared leave a number of clues, like blood trails, to them being brutally murdered without their dead and mutilated bodies to confirm it!***SPOILERS*** It's in the last 15 minutes that we the audience as well as Deb finally get some kind of handle to what exactly is going on in the film. And it's Deb herself who's the key to it without her really knowing about it! That's until it's too late for her as well as Jim who let the whole thing, his wife Deb's mental breakdown, go on too far to the point that he became a victim of it.

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.

I really enjoyed Dark Mirror. It's not your typical scary movie, but that's what makes it so good. The story grips you right from the beginning and never allows you to catch your breath. The plot revolves around a photographer who, after moving into the perfect (and yet, creepy) old house, discovers that there are secrets hidden in the house's glass windows and mirrors that only her camera can reveal. The film moves at such a rapid pace and the suspense never lets up, so much so that I didn't foresee the very clever plot twist at the end of the film coming. A couple of the actors turn in campy performances, but given the spooky, off-putting world into which this film immediately transports us, they didn't bother me or seem to be out of place. Lisa Vidal shines in the lead role of Deborah, and director Pablo Proenza should be very proud of his work in steering this highly inventive film to its final, disturbing conclusion. I recommend this film not only because it's different than anything that I've seen recently, but it's very effective at scaring its audience. Just don't watch this one alone!