My review of Mirage (SPOILERS):
Until very recently, when copies of it were uploaded to YouTube, Mirage was one of the rarest of horror movies. It never got a video release in the US. But, New World Video over in the United Kingdom and in Australia did release it on video cassette and later DVD. Even though it was an American production, most Americans never had an opportunity to see Mirage prior to four years ago, when it was uploaded to YouTube.
Bambi is played by notable stunt woman, Laura Albert, and is easily my favorite part of the movie. What a shame that she was underutilized. She played the role of a ditzy floozy in the first thirty minutes of the film whose constant nudity seemed to signal that she would be one of the killer's first victims if horror movie conventions were followed. But it was revealed that she was smarter than she let on previously and was in on a scheme to make the heroine, Chris, jealous. Then, Bambi gets in her car and drives out of the desert. At that point, I was convinced that she was the killer, especially as later shots of the killer were limited to a boots and blue jeans wearing torso. But no, inexplicably, Bambi is just out of the movie after the first thirty minutes and plays no future role in the story. The killer is just some random guy that none of the other characters know.
The setting of a desert allows Mirage to carve out a somewhat unique role in horror movie history. Not too many horror movies are filmed in a desert. Director, Bill Crain, shot the movie purposefully to showcase the vast emptiness of the desert. Large mountains are always in the far distance, but the characters seemingly never reach any landmark no matter how far they drive or walk.
While I do believe that Mirage would have been a better movie had Bambi been revealed to have been the killer, in the final half hour of the film, when "B. G. Steers" (a pseudonym for a man that would later become a famous director and writer, Burr Steers) is revealed to be the killer, the movie finally starts to become interesting. Steers does a great job as the killer. He is creepy, funny and maintains a scary degree of control over his teen victims. As the killer explains to Chris, he lives out in the desert amongst the rock formations, so she wont be able to hide or escape him no matter where she runs.
The ending is just terrible. Chris is told by the local law enforcement officers that they found the bodies of her friends but did not find the body of the killer or the truck and that her friends' bodies were not found where she said that they would be. So what is the conclusion? Did the killer rise from the dead and rearrange the bodies and drive the truck away? Or, was Chris the killer all along and the scenes in the movie just a Mirage she experienced due to the desert heat?
Kevin Masterson, who played Trip, did a horrible acting job. His reactions were so unrealistic that I burst out laughing and the movie lost any atmosphere that it had developed. His worst moment was when he discovered that the killer had desecrated the dead body of Mary, Trip's girlfriend, and left Trip a note. The main heroine, Chris, removes the note, that had been driven through Mary's head with a nail, and reads it. Trip demands to know what the note says. Chris hands him the note, written in Mary's blood, and it reads "nail her, I did." Kevin Masterson makes the unusual artistic choice to play Trip in the following manner as his reaction to the note: Trip stomps his feet petulantly as he walks away from Chris and mutters "you son of a bitch". I am not doing the scene justice. It has to be watched to be believed.
Bambi is played by notable stunt woman, Laura Albert, and is easily my favorite part of the movie. What a shame that she was underutilized. She played the role of a ditzy floozy in the first thirty minutes of the film whose constant nudity seemed to signal that she would be one of the killer's first victims if horror movie conventions were followed. But it was revealed that she was smarter than she let on previously and was in on a scheme to make the heroine, Chris, jealous. Then, Bambi gets in her car and drives out of the desert. At that point, I was convinced that she was the killer, especially as later shots of the killer were limited to a boots and blue jeans wearing torso. But no, inexplicably, Bambi is just out of the movie after the first thirty minutes and plays no future role in the story. The killer is just some random guy that none of the other characters know.
The setting of a desert allows Mirage to carve out a somewhat unique role in horror movie history. Not too many horror movies are filmed in a desert. Director, Bill Crain, shot the movie purposefully to showcase the vast emptiness of the desert. Large mountains are always in the far distance, but the characters seemingly never reach any landmark no matter how far they drive or walk.
While I do believe that Mirage would have been a better movie had Bambi been revealed to have been the killer, in the final half hour of the film, when "B. G. Steers" (a pseudonym for a man that would later become a famous director and writer, Burr Steers) is revealed to be the killer, the movie finally starts to become interesting. Steers does a great job as the killer. He is creepy, funny and maintains a scary degree of control over his teen victims. As the killer explains to Chris, he lives out in the desert amongst the rock formations, so she wont be able to hide or escape him no matter where she runs.
The ending is just terrible. Chris is told by the local law enforcement officers that they found the bodies of her friends but did not find the body of the killer or the truck and that her friends' bodies were not found where she said that they would be. So what is the conclusion? Did the killer rise from the dead and rearrange the bodies and drive the truck away? Or, was Chris the killer all along and the scenes in the movie just a Mirage she experienced due to the desert heat?
Kevin Masterson, who played Trip, did a horrible acting job. His reactions were so unrealistic that I burst out laughing and the movie lost any atmosphere that it had developed. His worst moment was when he discovered that the killer had desecrated the dead body of Mary, Trip's girlfriend, and left Trip a note. The main heroine, Chris, removes the note, that had been driven through Mary's head with a nail, and reads it. Trip demands to know what the note says. Chris hands him the note, written in Mary's blood, and it reads "nail her, I did." Kevin Masterson makes the unusual artistic choice to play Trip in the following manner as his reaction to the note: Trip stomps his feet petulantly as he walks away from Chris and mutters "you son of a bitch". I am not doing the scene justice. It has to be watched to be believed.