History Film / Mirrors2008

[[caption-width-right:240:Ben learns the (first) secret of the mirrors and gets a {{Foreshadowing}} of his own fate]]

[[caption-width-right:240:Ben learns the (first) secret of the mirrors [[spoiler:and gets a {{Foreshadowing}} of his own fate]]]]

* MustMakeAmends: Although it was the fault of the MadScientist psychiatrist, not her, Anna was well aware that [[spoiler:the demon within her had escaped into the mirrors]], and therefore once she learns that this has led to countless deaths, and might cause Ben to lose his family too, she agrees to [[spoiler:return and absorb the demon back into her again]]. Helped along by her already being TheAtoner (and having joined the church) for [[spoiler:the things the demon made her do when she was possessed the first time]].

* ManOnFire: Ben's body is on fire in one of his mirror visions at the empty mall.

* SlasherSmile: Michael's reflection gives a rather terrifying one in his reflection in the water, just before he slices Amy's cheek.

The movie follows Ben, a former police officer, as he takes an overnight security guard position in a burned-down department store. [[TheOldestTricksInTheBook As might be expected]], an evil force in the mirrors takes the form of your reflection, and whatever harm it imposes on itself happens to the real person. Now Ben has to figure out how to stop it before it kills his family, then him.

* WriteToTheFuture: Somehow, before he dies and before Ben ever applies for the night watchman job, Gary Lewis gets hold of Ben's address and sends him a package (delivered posthumously) containing clippings about the Mayflower fire. [[invoked]] [[ParanoiaFuel Or else he was made to send it by his reflection, using future foreknowledge the demon possessed]]...

** The fact the son in the family is [[Film/Halloween1978 named Michael, is only six years old, and spends the latter part of the movie controlled by his reflection so as to run around with a knife]]...

* NothingExcitingEverHappensHere: The day watchman [[SchmuckBait actually says this]] when giving Ben a tour of the ruins. Considering he has to know what happened to the past night watchmen, Gary Lewis for certain, this is obviously a case of downplaying the truth to keep from scaring him away.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: While it's clear the demon was doing so in order to frighten Amy and ratchet up the tension (as well as taunt her), allowing her to see Michael's reflection remaining in the mirror after he moved away convinced her Ben was telling the truth so that she would help him cover all the mirrors--something that made it much harder for it get at her and the kids later. Although maybe the demon just liked the challenge, and the idea of them waiting in fear...

** On a related note, Gary at least seems to have come to the erroneous conclusion that what the mirrors want is to be properly taken care of, since just before his death he tries to apologize for trying to "escape" them and then proceeds to madly clean and polish the mirrors to make amends.

* TheAlcoholic: Ben, thanks to accidental shooting that torpedoed his career.

* AllJustADream: Ben experiences this several times in the burned-down department store. [[spoiler:Most notably, he was set on fire for several seconds, then it all just went away and he was totally unharmed.]]

* EvilTwin: Everyone's reflection.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler:The very first time the audience sees Ben, it's in a reflection (on his TV screen).]]

* KillItWithFire: The department store was burned down in an attempt to defeat the evil in the mirrors, with the logic that fire is the only way to truly destroy a mirror. [[spoiler:It doesn't work.]]

* ShoutOut: In Michael's room, there is a poster of MahouSenseiNegima and in Daisy's room, there is a poster of TsubasaReservoirChronicle. It raises some strange questions as to why a six-year old would be watching or reading heavy {{Ecchi}}...

* {{Exposition}}: The shooting that took Ben off the force (another cop he killed while undercover, as it turns out) is first revealed through a headline on a newspaper stuffed among his belongings. This is to replace a DeletedScene where instead his former partner explained about the shooting (and directed Ben to the job offer at Mayflower).

* {{Exposition}}: The shooting that took Ben off the force (an undercover cop as it turns out) is first revealed through a headline on a newspaper stuffed among his belongings.

* GoneHorriblyRight: [[MadScientist Dr. Kane's]] experiments at St. Matthew's hospital. [[spoiler:He just wanted to rid Anna of her demons. He did, all right, literally--but what he didn't realize is they were real, not merely a psychological disorder, so that when the demon became trapped in the mirrors, it was able to force all the inmates to kill each other and cause the closure of the hospital.]] By implication this even [[LaserGuidedKarma leads to his own death]] while awaiting trial for his unethical practices ([[CallForward with a shard of mirror]], of course).

* MeaningfulName: [[CainAndAbel Dr. Kane]].

* HighTurnoverRate: The night watchman position at Mayflower is certainly cursed. While we don't know exactly how many employees they went through before Ben, there were at least two: Gary Lewis, whose death begins the movie, and Terrence Berry who burned down the store because the mirrors murdered his family.

* MyGreatestFailure: The reason Ben needs a night watchman position in the first place, the accidental shooting that led to his self-imposed exile from the force (until Angela and his old partner from the force do a bit of an intervention).

A direct-to-DVD sequel has been completed and is scheduled for release on October 19, 2010, apparently unrelated to the events of the first one. When Max, who is recovering from a traumatic accident, takes a job as a nighttime security guard, he begins to see visions of a young mysterious woman in the store's mirror.

* GoryDiscretionShot: Whatever Eleanor does to her killer once she gets her hands on him, it's apparently so ghastly that all we're allowed to see are blood splatters on the the other side of the mirror, followed by it shattering into a million pieces.