Eisner grabs our attention right from the get-go and lets us know that something isn’t right in the small town of Ogden Marsh, Iowa. During a Little League baseball game, a disheveled-looking man walks out onto the field with a loaded shotgun. Sheriff David Dutton (Olyphant) is in attendance and confronts the man. Dutton is forced to shoot and kill the man. Something doesn’t seem right about the situation. Sure, the man was the town drunk but the tests come back and reveal that he had no alcohol in his system. Pretty soon, other townsfolk start acting strangely. The sheriff’s wife, Dr. Judy Dutton (Mitchell) sees a man who appears listless and tired, repeating himself. Later that night, he burns down his house with his family in it. It doesn’t take long for the military to step in and round up and quarantine the townsfolk including the Duttons. Naturally, the military are unable to contain the threat and all hell breaks loose.

Breck Eisner does a nice job of gradually building up the threat and taking enough time to let us get to know the main characters so that we care about what happens to them later on. Early on, he creates a sense of place with several atmospheric establishing shots of the town. There are also several tension-filled moments, like when Judy is strapped to a gurney in government quarantine with a room full of others and an infected person enters the room and begins stabbing those still alive with a pitchfork. There is a real, palpable sense that she’s in danger. Another frighteningly effective scene takes place in a car wash as our heroes are besieged by the infected. There’s also an eerily beautiful shot of the town at night, ravaged by fire and destruction brought on by its infected inhabitants.

The Crazies is anchored by strong performances by Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. Playing the sheriff in this film seems like a warm-up, of sorts, for his current role as a U.S. Marshal in the T.V. show Justified. He brings just the right amount of affability and gravitas to the role while also having good chemistry with genre veteran Mitchell. She has a real knack for conveying the right mix of resilience and vulnerability while also imparting an intelligence to convincingly play a doctor. Plus, she’s got a great pair of lungs and can deliver an absolutely chilling scream when her character is being terrorized. Also worth mentioning is Joe Anderson who is quite good as the ever dependable deputy. He brings an exciting intensity to his role and does an excellent job realizing his character’s entire arc over the course of the film.

With 9/11, and with it the threats of Anthrax and SARS, as well as the success of chemical threat horror films like 28 Days Later (2002) and its sequel 28 Weeks Later (2007), it’s amazing that it took so long for a remake of The Crazies to be made. It’s really a testimony to how prescient Romero’s original film is that it’s just as relevant today as it was back in the 1970s. Thanks to the Patriot Act, if a town were infected by chemical warfare the government could do what happens in this film which makes it that much more terrifying. What makes this film a successful remake is the choices Eisner makes, like how he depicts the infected, shown in three distinct phases which is a nice variation on what Romero did in the original. One gets the impression watching The Crazies that the filmmakers put a lot of thought into this film. This isn’t just a carbon copy of the original. Unlike so many lazy remakes, this one examines some weighty themes and wraps them up in a very entertaining package.

Special Features:

There is an audio commentary by director Breck Eisner who, rather appropriately, starts off talking about how he got involved in the project. He wanted the film’s focus to be on the townsfolk, specifically David and Judy Dutton. He admits that initially he did not want to remake a Romero film but after watching the original again felt that he could increase the scale of it and update the premise to reflect contemporary issues. Eisner touches upon various aspects, including casting and locations, while also eloquently analyzing the film’s themes.

“Behind the Scenes with Breck Eisner” is a pretty standard if not well-made making of featurette that mixes interview soundbites with clips from the film. Eisner points out that an early version of the script he read had more of a balance between depicting the townsfolk and the military but he wanted to focus more on the town with an emphasis on horror rather than action.

“Paranormal Pandemics” takes a look at how the filmmaker designed the infected. The original design looked too much like zombies and so they went for a more vein-y look. We see actors getting fantastic-looking makeup applied. Eisner explains the three stages of infection and expanded on Romero’s original concept. They based the makeup on actual infections to give an added realism to the film.

“The George A. Romero Template” features filmmakers like Phantasm auteur Don Coscarelli and pundits from various horror film websites singing the praises of Romero’s films and how influential they are. Naturally, they talk about the original Crazies film and its relevance now.

“Make-Up Mastermind: Rob Hall in Action” goes into more detail about how they created the infected makeup. It’s pretty cool to see how they do it and how realistic it looks.

“The Crazies Motion Comic Episodes 1 & 2” features simplistic animated comic book art providing the backstory to the events depicted in the film.

“Visual Effects in Motion” takes a look at a few sequences before CGI was added and how, by stages, they achieved the end result. It is interesting to see how much a given sequence is enhanced by CGI.

Also included are a teaser and two theatrical trailers.

Finally, there is a “Behind the Scenes Photo Gallery” featuring shots of the cast and crew at work.

Italian director and screenwriter Fulci had a diverse career, and was responsible for films in lots of genres including comedies, westerns and crime thrillers, but it’s his horror films that will make sure he has a place in the hearts of cult film fans everywhere. Revered by gorehounds, his high point is generally accepted as the Lovecraftian, insane, ‘The Beyond’ which features satanic crucifixions, tarantula attacks and a spiffing head-dissolved-by-acid death.

A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin is not quite as graphic, however. Carol Hammond (played by Brazilian hottie Florinda Bolkan) is the daughter of a successful English politician, and is not quite right in the old coconut. She’s beset by mind-bending dreams involving hard partying, dissolute neighbour Julia (Anita Strindberg), where they indulge in some arty lesbionic hanky-panky in what appears to be a wind tunnel. Unable to rid herself of her nightmares with the help of a psychiatrist, they culminate with her stabbing Julia to death in a grisly sequence. Sure enough, she finds out the next day that Julia has been offed in a manner exactly the same as her dream. What follows is a tale of red herrings, chicanery and murderous hippies as Carol and her father set out to unravel the mystery surrounding the murder and prove Carol’s innocence. Did she do it? Who knows? Who cares? Who dares to dream?

Special mention must be made about the scene where Carol stumbles upon a bunch of disembowelled dogs whilst in a clinic. The effects were so realistic that Lucio Fulci was accused of animal cruelty and nearly copped two years in jail. He only managed to get off the hook when special effects savant Carlo Rimbaldi turned up at court bearing a latex hound, proving that it was cinema trickery.

Fulci has crafted an effective thriller, and it’s helped along by a queasy Ennio Morricone score. Not having lived through the decade I can’t say if it was all free love, beads and headbands but he evokes an effective, albeit sinister, sixties vibe here. Within the first five minutes, you’re subjected to more claustrophobia, crash-zooms, razor sharp cheekbones and the type of coiffured manes you see on faded old posters in hairdressers than most other films of this genre. The acting is a bit stiff, but this is to be expected from a cheap seventies giallo and this reviewer would argue that a cult film such as this is all the better for it. This is essential viewing for any Fulci aficionado, but anyone who is a fan of horror or thrillers will enjoy it. It’s a stylish and will keep you guessing right up until the very last frame.

Hells on Wheels (1967) is another story focusing on stock-car racing. Marty and Dell are brothers involved in racing. The former drives ‘em while the latter fixes ‘em. Dell resents living in the shadow of his flashier brother and aspires to be a driver himself. There is lots of snazzy footage of cars racing that is quite dynamic for such a low-budget film. Things pick up when an unscrupulous businessman takes advantage of the bitter sibling rivalry and recruits Dell to fix stock-cars for him.

The Sidehackers (1969) makes good use of freeze frames over the opening credits a la Sam Peckinpah as it chronicles the exciting world of sidehacking – the racing of dirt bikes with side cars. We get cheesy footage of a racer and his girlfriend frolicking in a field in slow motion. There is also plenty of exciting footage of bikes racing around a dirt track with their off-track exploits wedged between them. This mainly involves drinking beer and hanging with their buddies.

Less interesting is the horror film Dangerous Charter (1962) which involves three fishermen trying to make ends meet. During a fishing trip, they come across a mysterious ship floating out in the water. It seems to have been abandoned. What happened? Where did they go? Who cares?

Mixing things up a little is Little Laura and Big John (1973), which depicts the exploits of Florida-based criminal John Ashley and his girlfriend Laura (played by Karen Black) in the 1920s. They were friends as kids and she dreamed of being rich. They grew up and their friendship blossomed into something deeper. After accidentally killing someone and then trying to dispose of the body, John eludes the cops by hiding in the Everglades. For a period film it mystifies with its choices for music, a recurring funk instrumental that comes right out of the blue. It would be a ballsy, radical move if the film wasn’t so clumsily made.

Perhaps the most interesting film in this set is Pink Angels (1971) – here’s a concept we don’t get enough of: gay, cross-dressing biker gangs. The film begins with a surreal prologue and just gets stranger from there as if everyone responsible for it dropped acid while making it. You can see what they were shooting for: a transvestite version of Easy Rider (1969). Like Dennis Hopper’s film, there are plenty of musical interludes but with music by no one you’ve ever heard of before. This is one of those offbeat exploitation films that could only have come out of the 1970s. This has to be the most fey bunch of bikers ever put on film but also a lot of fun to watch. What a strange film!

Special Features:

None.

No, Zombieland has zombie, lots of ‘em, and it has Woody Harrelson killing them, frequently.

Despite this, Zombieland is incredibly good fun, and the Blu-Ray medium has been used to the full for every gore soaked, blood spattered scene. You know exactly what you’re in for during the opening title sequence as people are shown either dying, or inches from death, at the hands of zombies in slow motion as the blood flies through the air in vivid colour.

This is not a movie to watch with the kids or the elderly parents. It’s loud, it’s offensive and it’s hilarious – if you like zombies being shot, beaten and crushed with pianos, this one’s for you.

The film’s plot, or what there is of one, focuses on Columbus, played by Jesse Eisenberg, and his efforts to get home from college in the midst of a zombie outbreak in the US. Columbus isn’t his real name, that’s where he’s heading, but Tallahassee (Harrelson) doesn’t like real names and insists on using place names instead.

Columbus is nervous of everyone, which comes in useful when the world is overrun by zombies. The pair meet two sisters, Wichita and Little Rock (Stone and Breslin) who seem to want nothing more than to reach an amusement park in California.

Why not?

Along the way the usual mistrust turns into trust, and then love, before they finally end up at the best part of the film, Bill Murray’s house. Tallahassee is a big Bill Murray fan and thinks that staying in Murray’s house is a good way of avoiding the zombies, which leads to a hysterical cameo from Bill Murray. Ghostbusters references fly thick and fast before the gang head off to the amusement park, and a brilliantly worked sequence where Tallahassee lays ruin to pretty much every zombie he can find in some truly imaginative ways.

As an indication of just how dumb some of the scenes are in this film, when Columbus is being chased by zombies at the amusement park, where does he head? The haunted house… sheesh.

So, as zombie films go this one’s pretty devoid of meaning – but it doesn’t need it. It’s entertaining, gore filled and worth watching just for the Bill Murray cameo, if nothing else.

Cody had already experienced some backlash once Juno became a part of the cultural zeitgeist but Fox was still enjoying the success she garnered from the immensely popular Transformers films. However, with Jennifer’s Body she couldn’t hide behind expensive CGI and noisy action sequences and had to step up and demonstrate some acting chops. Unfortunately, she had become the Maxim magazine pinup girl du jour as well as gracing numerous other covers and people were clearly tired of seeing her everywhere. Add to this fact that the horror genre is a niche market with limited appeal and so if the studio was expecting Juno-like box office results they were in for a rude awakening.

Jennifer Check (Fox) and Anita “Needy” Lesnicki (Seyfried) are best friends with the former being the hot cheerleader type and the latter a nerd. Normally, these two diametrically opposed types don’t bond in high school but that’s because they’ve been friends since they were little kids. One night they decide to check out one of Jennifer’s favourite bands at a local bar because she’s fixated on their lead singer (a deadpan Brody). The band is a spot-on jab at all of those crappy emo groups like Dashboard Confessional, right down to the sensitive ponytail guy lyrics and wardrobe reminiscent of Maroon 5 or The Killers.

After narrowly escaping a fire that engulfs the bar midway through the band’s set (an eerie harbinger of things to come), the girls split up. Jennifer takes off with the band and an understandably upset Needy goes home and calls her boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons). Later that night, Jennifer shows up unexpectedly at Needy’s house covered in blood and acting very peculiar. Maybe it’s the animalistic growl she lets out before puking up a huge amount of black, oily fluid all over Needy’s kitchen floor.

The next day at school, Jennifer shows up and acts like nothing happened, shrugging off the apocalyptic fire that almost took their lives. If Jennifer was a man-eater in a metaphoric sense, she becomes one literally as she uses the promise of sex to lure boys and then proceeds to rip them to shreds, devouring them. These scenes naturally give Megan Fox the chance to show off her considerable assets. Jennifer clearly enjoys her newfound power but it comes at a horrific cost. Needy begins to realize what’s really going on with her friend and decides to stop her.

At times, Jennifer’s Body is like Heathers (1989) re-imagined as a horror film with Fox in the nihilistic Christian Slater role and a dash of Idle Hands (1999) thrown in for good measure. Both films feature a series of teen deaths and show how the media exploits them while a shell-shocked student body tries to cope. Both films also feature pitch black humour with Jennifer’s Body gleefully skewering popular culture.

Cody’s screenplay is smart and witty but the overabundance of pop culture references does instantly date it, which I’m sure will be part of its appeal to the cult following that will no doubt form once all the hype goes away. As she demonstrated with Juno, Cody has an uncanny knack for authentically capturing not just how teenagers speak but act as well. This is especially true of teenage girls and she does a good job depicting the relationship between Jennifer and Needy. Before her transformation, Jennifer wielded all the power while Needy worshipped her, but when Needy realizes what her best friend has become, she takes on a more assertive role, acquiring her own power.

Jennifer’s Body is strictly cult film material with all kinds of pop culture references – both obvious and obscure – to those savvy enough to spot them. In a refreshing tweak of the horror genre, it’s not the girls who are the victims of the monster but boys instead. It’s not surprising that the film was not a mainstream hit and those obituaries on Cody and Fox’s careers that their critics seemed to take so much delight in writing may be premature.

Special Features:

On the theatrical version of the film there is an audio commentary by director Karyn Kusama and writer Diablo Cody. Things start off slowly as the two women get caught up in watching the film. Kusama praises the “totally unique” structure of the script and briefly touches upon what drew her to the project. Naturally, she and Cody talk about the relationship between Jennifer and Needy – the dynamic that plays over the course of the film. They point out that they didn’t want to make the boys in the film deserved of punishment – just clueless.

On the extended version, Kusama returns to do a commentary on her on. Thankfully, it jumps to specific moments in this version that differ from the theatrical one. Kusama says that this version more accurately reflects Cody’s original script. She explains why this footage has been put back in and, in some cases, why it was not in the theatrical version.

We meet Carol (Deneuve) working at a beauty salon in London. She keeps nodding off much to the annoyance of her client. She then meets her boyfriend and they have a conversation where she appears to be distracted and barely contributing. Carol seems unable or unwilling to relate to anyone, even her older sister Helen (Furneaux). She sits alone in her apartment and Polanski amplifies the sounds of dripping water and a ticking clock to reflect her slowly deteriorating mind. There are also shots of Carol walking the streets of London to the jazzy soundtrack of Chico Hamilton that provide a snapshot of the city – one of the hippest places in the world at the time. Carol forgets about a dinner date with her boyfriend and he finds her on a street bench staring at a crack in the sidewalk. What makes what’s happening to her all the more disturbing is that Polanski gives us no explanation as to why this is happening to her – it just is. When Helen, one of Carol’s last ties to reality, leaves for vacation with her boyfriend, she really goes off the deep end which culminates in a truly chilling conclusion.

Catherine Deneuve delivers an astonishing performance as a lost, lonely woman losing touch with reality. So much of her performance is internalized and she conveys Carol’s madness in the listless way she seems to be going through the motions, or in her eyes, the glazed expression she has while zoning out at work. In the hands of a lesser actress some of the things she does or the way she behaves could come across as silly but there is a complete conviction to her performance, a willingness to go all the way which is impressive to watch. There are large portions of the film where Deneuve is acting on her own and reacting to her environment, or what she perceives to be her environment, that is not an easy thing to pull off but she is more than up to the task.

Throughout most of Repulsion, and especially after Helen leaves for vacation, we question what is actually reality and what is only happening in Carol’s fevered imagination. At a certain point it becomes obvious that she is becoming a danger to herself and to those around her and yet no one seems to notice or wants to get involved, her sister included. But then do any of us stop to help that crazy homeless person talking to themselves? The sad reality of Repulsion is that Carol has so far alienated herself from society that she is beyond help and that is the true horror and tragedy of Polanski’s film.

Special Features:

There is an audio commentary by director Roman Polanski and actress Catherine Deneuve. Polanski considers the film one of his “shabbiest” in terms of technique. He says that the entire film is intended to be seen from Carol’s point-of-view. Deneuve says that she lived in London and says that it is easy to feel lonely in the city. She talks about the challenge of filming on the noisy streets of the city. Polanski points out shots or camerawork that he would do differently now while Deneuve says that he was difficult to work with but that it helped her performance.

Also included are two trailers.

“A British Horror Film” is a retrospective featurette with key crew members, including Polanski. They talk about the origins of the project – how they came up with the story, the financing and so on. Everyone interviewed tells engaging anecdotes about how the film was made.

“Grand Ecran” was made for French television and features rare footage of Polanski and Deneuve at work on the set of the film. It provides fascinating insight into the director’s working methods at the time.

Late one snowy night around Christmastime, a desperate looking man just makes it on to a train before it pulls out. He clings onto a present like it is the most important thing on Earth. He ends up passing out in a train car with Pete (Zahn), a lousy salesman, and Chloe (Sobieski), a young pre-med student. When Miles (Glover), the train’s conductor, asks the man for money for his ticket, he discovers that the man has died. A mysterious wooden box falls out of the package that the man was carrying and Pete can’t resist checking it out despite being warned not to by Miles.

Eventually, Chloe and Miles also look in the box and they all see something that is very beautiful and very valuable (although, we never see what’s inside it). They argue about what they should do. Do they take whatever is in the box and split up the amount that it’s worth? They decide to get rid of the body and divide up the profits, but of course it’s not going to be that easy (is it ever in these kinds of films?).

Steve Zahn plays the motormouth schemer, Danny Glover is the one with some semblance of a conscience and Leelee Sobieski is the quiet one, the wild card that changes everything. She has a deliciously unhinged role to sink her teeth into and it’s a lot of fun to see her character get progressively crazier. What happened to Sobieski’s career? She had such a promising start with Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and has yet to capitalize on the promise of that film, doing mostly B-movies with the notable exception of a small role in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies (2009). She certainly has an intriguing presence on camera, a certain enigmatic quality that few filmmakers have been able to capitalize on and she is quite good in this film.

We don’t get the characters’ backstories in Night Train but let’s be honest, they are not all that important. First-time director Brian King drops these three people, with contrasting personalities into the film, and lets them bounce off each other. By not giving us any background information on the characters we are in the same boat as they are: we don’t know anything about them and so we don’t know what they are capable of until they are put in a given situation. As a result, the film keeps us guessing as to what they’re going to do next.

Night Train is nicely shot, intentionally set during the holiday season which gives King the excuse to decorate the train with atmospheric Christmas lights which is contrasted with shots of the train’s exterior as it goes speeding through the cold, inhospitable night. Much like the twisted thriller Shallow Grave (1994), once a significant amount of money is involved, normal people start behaving irrationally, driven by greed and willing to do all sorts of unpleasant things. King keeps things moving at a brisk pace as Night Train clocks in at a lean 91 minutes, trimmed of any narrative fat. The result is a tense thriller with lots of entertaining plot twists that keeps you guessing as to how it will all play out.

Special Features:

There is a trailer.

Also included is a “Photo Gallery,” a two-minute montage of stills from Night Train.

“Making of Featurette” takes a look at how the film came together. Director King talks about how he always liked trains as a setting in films and was inspired by old John Huston films. The producers talk about the challenge of building train sets and why they couldn’t just shoot on a real train. There are all kinds of behind-the-scenes footage which gives an indication of how much work went into this project.

“Interviews/Soundbites with Cast and Crew” features the four main actors, the director, the producers, and the SFX makeup guy. The actors talk about their characters and their interpretation of what the box means. They also talk about what drew them to their respective characters. The soundbites in the making of featurette are taken from these segments but now you can see them organized by person.

Anna (Browning) is troubled by dreams about her dead mother who perished in a tragic fire. She’s been released from a mental hospital after trying to kill herself but she still has unresolved issues that her doctor says she has to work out on her own. It’s only been ten months since the accident and her father (Strathairn) has already shacked up with another woman named Rachel (Banks), who was her mother’s caregiver.

Anna’s reunion with her sister Alex (Kebbel) gets off to a rocky start as she harbors resentment for being left alone with their father and his new girlfriend while Anna stayed at the hospital. The first night home, Anna dreams about the charred remains of her mother creeping up on her. Meanwhile, Rachel has wasted no time making the place her own, much to the chagrin of Anna and Alex. It doesn’t take too long for the sisters to surmise that the fire was no accident and that Rachel had something to do with it.

Elizabeth Banks does a fine job as dad’s girlfriend who maintains a sunny facade but underneath is pure evil. It allows her to have fun playing mind games with Anna and Alex. Banks gets to sink her teeth into a malevolent role that has been played by the likes of Piper Laurie (Carrie), Jessica Lange (Hush), and Diane Lane (The Glass House). Emily Browning and Arielle Kebbel get to do the Nancy Drew thing as they try to dig up dirt on Rachel and piece together what happened the night their mother died. They are quite believable as sisters and have a nice rapport.

The filmmakers waste no time setting up the conflict between the sisters and Rachel. Early on, the directors keep us guessing if The Uninvited is going to be a traditional thriller with the evil stepmom or a supernatural thriller with the vengeful ghost of the mother? The filmmakers apply the usual scare tactics with sudden jolts but nothing truly horrifying, more like the fleeting thrills one gets on a rollercoaster. The typical nightmarish imagery is duly trotted out (keyholes that drip blood, creepy dead people coming back from the grave, and so on) but it isn’t anything that hasn’t been done a million times before.

If you’ve seen enough of these kinds of films, it is pretty easy to predict what happens next in The Uninvited except for a nutty twist ending which kind of comes out of left field. Although, in the case of this film that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s something pleasant in familiarity and The Uninvited certainly delivers in this respect.

Special Features:

There is an “Alternate Ending” which spells things out a little bit more but in a completely unnecessary way.

Also included are four deleted scenes with more of Anna’s homecoming. There is another scene between Anna and Alex talking about visions of their mother. There is a nice, tense scene between Anna and Rachel. Finally, we see Anna and Alex getting ready for a dinner party with their folks and their friends.

“Unlocking The Uninvited” is a making of featurette that gives away some major plot points so you should watch the film first. Cast and crew talk about how this film differs from the original Korean version. Emily Browning and Arielle Kebbel talk about how they were cast and how it was working together.

Jason (Brooker) managed to survive Part 2 (1981) (what a surprise) but is on the run from the authorities after killing eight camp counselors in the previous film. A group of five teens and two aging hippies take a trip to Crystal Lake unaware of the massacre that has just gone down. One of them, Chris (Kimmell), meets up with her boyfriend Rick (Kratka) at a cabin on the lake. Over the weekend, her friends are systematically killed off by Jason who’s clearly pissed off at almost being killed in the previous installment.

It’s pretty obvious that Chris is being set up as the “final girl”: she has a mysterious traumatic past and refuses to have sex with her boyfriend because, as slasher films have taught us, if you have sex, you die. The filmmakers trot out all kinds of clichés: there’s the crazy old man that tries to warn our protagonists, the unfriendly locals, surly bikers, the nerdy ugly kid, and so on. It’s pretty easy to figure out who’s going to get it and when but there is almost a sense comfortable familiarity in this predictable formula.

As you would imagine there are all kinds of 3-D gags as a snake lunges out at the camera, a kid holds a baseball bat, a yo-yo is dangled right at it, and so on. In a nice touch, and the only reason to get edition, you now have the option to watch Part 3 in 3-D (two sets of glasses are included), which does improve the experience of watching this film considerably. Other than this novelty, the film is notable for the first appearance of Jason’s iconic hockey mask. While not the best installment in this long-running franchise, it is certainly far from being the worst either.

Special Features:

Absent from this edition is an audio commentary that was included on the box set so you should probably hold onto it if you’re a completist.

The only other extra is a theatrical trailer.

Aja wastes no time spilling the red stuff as a frightened security guard slashes open his own throat from a broken shard from a mirror in the opening prologue. The director also demonstrates a knack for creepy ambiance as the death takes place in a deserted locker room complete with all of the locker doors slowly opening on their own, much to the dismay of the guard before he tops himself.

Ben Carson (Sutherland) is a disgraced New York City Police detective who has quit the force and now works as a security guard for a burnt out department store – the victim of a fire that ravaged the premises five years ago but is now mired in a legal battle amongst insurance companies. He’s an alcoholic and estranged from his wife and two kids but with this new job he hopes to get his life back on track.

At night, Ben patrols the grounds of the decaying department store that, amidst the debris, features an impressive collection of unusually clean mirrors. The store is the perfect setting for Aja to lay on the creepy atmosphere with darkened hallways, creaky doors and old, foreboding architecture. However, these things are the least of Ben’s worries. It’s those damn mirrors that really start to put the zap on him. In his reflection, Ben sees himself horribly disfigured or engulfed in flames. Is he cracking up or is something else going on?

Kiefer Sutherland does a good as a man tortured by his past and gradually coming apart at the seams because of his current job. He brings his trademark intensity to the role while also making us sympathetic to his plight. This helps elevate Mirrors above the usual gorefest. The mystery of the department store fire is also a fascinating aspect of the film as it provides clues to the otherworldly nature of the mirrors.

Aja still loves to depict and dwell on graphic death sequences that suggest he would like to be known as France’s answer to Dario Argento but he lacks the Maestro’s visual flair. That being said, Mirrors is Aja’s best film since High Tension with an engrossing story, strong performances from the cast, and characters you actually care about. It’s not just a series of kills strung together with a perfunctory story.

Special Features:

In a nice touch, you have the option of watch the theatrical or unrated version of the film.

“Reflections: The Making of Mirrors” takes a look at various phases of production and gives one an idea of all the work that went into creating the impressive sets. Alexandre Aja says that he was interested in doing a supernatural horror film a la The Shining (1980). He was approached by the film’s producer to loosely remake a Korean horror film Into the Mirror. Aja was a big fan of Kiefer Sutherland’s performance in Flatliners (1990) and wanted him for the film.

“Behind the Mirror” examines the concept of mirrors in our culture and mythology. Experts talk about a famous story about mirrors in Greek mythology. This featurette also gives a brief history of mirrors and how they are viewed in various cultures.

Finally, there are seven deleted scenes and one alternate scene with an optional commentary by Aja. Some highlights include a scene that provides more motivation for Ben becoming a security guard. There is more footage of the impressive department store set. Also present is a slightly different ending that they weren’t please with and rightly cut.