Dark Mirror (2007)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

****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.

The trouble with reality starts when the paranoid are also the people for whom seeing is believing. That's why delusions must be created."I'll know it when I see it," says the photographer-heroine (actress Lisa Vidal) of this 2007 indie film. "Deborah Martin" is a middling talent; a photographer who captures images, but who doesn't _see_. Her awareness dawns late. Her blind spot is her own paranoia.When she gets the brush-off for a job, she overhears -- through the muffle of a closed door -- her male interviewer remark "I wouldn't hire her, but I'd f**k her." When she catches a partially-obstructed glimpse of her bimbo neighbor and her husband on the front sidewalk, she sees certain infidelity.Deborah dismisses signals warning of flaws in her perception. Though perplexed enough to twice compare the image on her DSLR's monitor to her eyes' view of the bathroom shower, she ignores the incongruent behavior of the flower-or-splat-shaped wall appliqués.As is expected with the title "Dark Mirror" the film considers reflection in the vein of yin-yang or alter ego. The mother who visits her daughter Deborah at the new house is changed anew; whimsically, she is the supportive parent that Deborah long wanted. Donning a found Frau-Frau apron, afraid-she's-a-bad-mom Deborah morphs into June Cleaver. You may behold a painting and see a boy swimming in sun-dappled water. Look again and you may see a scene less idyllic.Writer-director Pablo Proenza's and writer Michael Reynold's layering of alternative interpretations of the mirror and reflection motifs piqued and held my interest. Distracting at first, lighting effects and camera angles ultimately had a synergistic impact on the story-telling and mood. In my view, this film is worth a look.

This disaster of a movie has nothing to recommend. While the actors try hard enough there is little they can do with such a nonsensical script. The plot – what plot? After looking at 14 other houses the female lead is attracted to this one which seems to give her an orgasm just looking around it. From there it's all downhill. For anyone with an IQ of seven or less this will probably be an attractive thing to watch, else wise it is a turkey.The direction is poor, the photography is appalling and thumps and gurgles that are substituted for 'music' really turn this shocker into an ordeal to sit through, torture at the top end of the scale. Miss this if you can ...

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!