The Mirror

I am not generally a fan of found footage movies. This one, however, doesn't have the cheap jump scares of something like Paranormal Activity nor a lot of the crazy shaky camera videography. The acting in the first half is quite amusing - 3 roomates (see flatmates; they are Brits after all) try to win the million dollar James Randi Foundation prize by proving paranormal shenanigans with a supposedly haunted mirror they find on eBay. The film turns a weird direction when the plot evolves and ends up somewhat short of a truly scary horror film.

(in one scene, you can clearly tell the victim is a doll, which snaps the viewer back into reality)

All in all, an okay watch. Don't expect too much by way of scares and give some appreciation to the cinematography - which is decent.

I can't believe someone actually said this was better than Oculus. That's the only reason I made this account. Believe me Oculus is much much better. Do not waste your time on this film. I am an avid horror fan this is just pure garbage. It is poorly made, it's goes nowhere, there's no jumpy bits, it's not scary in the slightest. . . . . . Oculus is very clever and enticing this is plain stale. I was so disappointed and even more so that it is a British film. Must've been a very low budget and must've been thrown together within a week. If you like horror and like a scare this will only disappoint. Nothing interesting came from this film. It's very boring I should've turned off after 10 minutes. No joke, Sabrina the teenage witch is scarier than this.

For a movie that is just making it up as it goes along (corner points were given to the actors, as in beginning of the scene and end of the scene, do as you please in between), this is not half bad. Even if you didn't know that, you will realize that the actors are making stuff up as they go (coherent and continuity be damned).

Which is a shame because things are there that could've been explored more and just looking good (especially the female lead), is not enough to keep you hooked for a long time. So our comic relief does a good job and he has quite a lot of jokes that almost make this a way better movie than it actually is. Unfortunately that thing, about this not making sense, characters behaving, like they are in a mental institution, where they lost their brain and other things like that, will kind of take the fun out of it ... literally.

All this is based on a true story. Yes really! Actually the two guys (no girl in that story, at least not one that was alive) who owned the real mirror of the story were at a screening at Frightfest and told us a few stories. You can either believe those guys or not. They sold the mirror on ebay to someone in Germany and the director found out about this and thought: Hey why don't I make a movie about this? Well guess what? He did! I know! Shocking. Almost more so than the movie itself! Which again, is only really "saved" (not literally), by the jokes of one of the characters ..

Excellent plot and storyline. Great build up to a bloody bad ending, mate. Ending came to abrupt almost as if the director got tired of shooting. Better luck next time.

I'm only giving it a 5 because its the first movie I have watched in a very long time that has actually scared the ... out of me. And I don't scare easy.

The parts that I was able to watch were pretty good.

The introduction was really good, not too long and not to short and explained enough but didn't give too much away.

The suspense slowly built up throughout the whole movie which made it even scarier in a good way.

For a movie that is filmed like paranormal activity, they did such a better job at it then they did, the graphics were really good.

Overall it was a good movie and would try to watch it again start to finish during day time. My recommendations is to not watch it in the dark, cover up all the mirrors in the house and watch it with someone you can bury your face into. :)