Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland) is an ex-police detective in New York whose alcoholism made him incompetent on the job and caused him to kill a man. Now he's trying to get his life in order. He's living with his kid sister to save money. He's taking medication to wean himself off the booze. Most important, he's trying to win back the trust of his estranged wife, a medical examiner, and maintain a loving relationship with his two young children. To make money while waiting for reinstatement, he takes a job as a night watchman at a department store gutted by fire. That was a mistake. He is soon tormented by the same supernatural mirrors that plagued his predecessor. The images in these mirrors do not reflect reality as we know it. The images will stare back at you, but remain in the mirror when you walk away. The images will even try to kill you. Soon, Ben Carson finds that the mirrors' demons follow him everywhere in every reflective surface. They're willing to harass him and his family until they get what they want. Ben's job is to find out exactly what that is.
This silly horror movie, based on a Korean film I haven't seen, shares several things about Asian-inspired supernatural tales that I dislike. The demons at first seem limited to a single space, but then later prove they can follow you wherever you go. They'll follow the protagonist, attack him, attack everyone he knows. They seem bound by certain limitations at first, but then it seems they can pretty much do anything they want - which makes all the running around, running away and desperate investigations into old records and dirty secrets seem pretty pointless. This one has lots of the usual gross-out effects (especially in the unrated version I saw), including a hideous and prolonged jaw-ripping scene.
The movie starts out flat and uninspired, and makes too little use of its main set piece - the burnt-out department store. Every line of dialogue is prosaic and sounds like something we've heard a hundred times before. The music is clichéd and slightly intrusive. There are intermittent unintentional laughs. The action picks up in the last third, which makes things less dull, but even stupider than before.
