MIRRORS 2

NIAGA SRELIOPS SNIATNOC

Remember when sequels were actually sequels? When the same actors showed up again as the same characters in the same costumes? Or when it was actually set and shot in the same place as the earlier ones? Halloween II is a sequel. A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Mad Max 2 and Aliens are sequels. This, on the other hand, is a sequel in the way that, for example, Hollow Man 2 is a sequel - i.e. it's not. It might be thematically similar (Hollow Man 2 is also an invisible man movie) but other than the name dropping a character name or two from the other film, it's nothing to do with it.

With Mirrors 2 (which again claims to be based on the Korean original Into The Mirror), the only holdovers from the original are the name of the company that owned the department store (Mayflower) and a newspaper cutting briefly glimpsed in the opening credits about Kiefer Sutherland's demise, and of course the presence of vast haunted mirrors. This time they're in the all-new Mayflower store in New Orleans, where a girl has gone missing and the new nightwatchman Nick Stahl (traumatised by the accidental death of his fiancee) keeps seeing spooky things in the mirrors. As various Mayflower executives succumb to horrible deaths (some augmented with CGI), Stahl investigates the disappearance - or murder? - of the missing girl, aided by her sister and what the mirrors show him.

The first Mirrors wasn't great - it was silly, but entertaining enough and doesn't entirely deserve its bad rep despite some stunningly dodgy moments - but this almost entirely unrelated followup has little to commend it: it was made for the home market rather than a theatrical one and in truth it looks it. Director Victor Garcia seems to be carving out a career in pointless additions to horror franchises: he made Return To House On Haunted Hill and a TV spinoff of 30 Days Of Night, and is now, according to the IMDb, working on a new Hellraiser movie that not only has the audacity to cast someone else as Pinhead but names two of its characters Bradley (after Doug, the original Pinhead). There are some neat effects, and an overlong nude shower scene, but it's never more than average and frankly surplus to requirements: one was enough.

**

Still, should you feel compelled: