Behind the Couch

Directed by Marina Sargenti, Mirror Mirror tells of Megan (Rainbow Harvest), a high-school student who discovers the antique mirror left behind by the previous occupants of her new home harbours demonic powers and the ability to grant her wishes… with deadly consequences. With its gothy, at times very campy sensibility, the film has rightly garnered a cult following over the years. At its heart, however, is the timeless notion of an outsider trying to find her place in the world, and with its themes concerning the corrupting influence of power and the consequences of selfishness, it unravels as a dark and spooky contemporary fairy tale.  Megan (Rainbow Harvest), who bears a striking resemblance to Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) from Beetlejuice (1988), is a gothy outsider who despairs at her relocation from LA to small town suburbia. She can’t relate to her mother (Karen Black) and is mercilessly taunted by her classmates because of her looks and quiet demeanour. Harvest perfectly con...

Following on from 2008’s Kiefer Sutherland starring thriller Mirrors , which was based on the hair-raising Korean film Into the Mirrors, Mirrors 2 is a supernatural horror starring Emmanuelle Vaughier ( Saw II ) and Nick Stahl ( Carnivale ). Like its predecessor, it looks set to exploit all kinds of spectrophobic (the fear of mirror images) notions as it follows the story of Max, a recovering addict struggling to come to terms with the car crash that killed his fiancé. Riddled with guilt and determined to try and make a new life for himself Max takes a job as night-time security guard in the Mayflower department store, but as his nightshifts begin he sees visions of a mysterious woman in the store’s mirrors. When he sets out to discover who she is, Max’s investigation reveals that the seemingly normal department store holds a dark secret and a bloody past. A series of horrifying and brutal murders ensues before long, and everyone connected with the store meet with nasty deaths. Can...

2008 Dir. Alexandre Aja When he is suspended from duty after accidentally shooting his partner, former NYPD detective Ben Carson (Kiefer Sutherland) gets a job as a security guard at a deserted department store. Determined to put his life back on track, kick his alcoholism and rejoin his estranged family, Ben soon becomes obsessed with the mirrors in the building and the strange visions they seemingly reflect. With no one to believe his wild stories, he sets out to solve the mystery of what lurks within the mirrors before his mind unravels completely… After kaleidoscopic opening credits and a rather unsettling and menacing scene set in the underground, what could have been a supremely creepy and subtly chilling film, soon descends into cheap jumps, cardboard characters and some really quite lazy writing that explains everything, because, you know, we’re just too dumb to be able to follow the story or piece together some information. Director Aja doesn’t display anything that ...

1962 Dir. Chano Urueta Sarah, a practising witch, discovers that her goddaughter Elena’s life is in danger and attempts to help her. The spirits and deities she converses with through her mystical mirror show Sarah the face of Elena’s killer, but command her not to interfere. Elena is soon poisoned by her husband, renowned surgeon Eduardo, who sets about moving his new wife Deborah (Rosita Arenas - The Curse of the Crying Woman ) into their castle. Sarah vows to avenge the death of her goddaughter and sets about communing with dark spirits to summon the ghost of Elena, who soon begins to stalk the halls of the castle and torment her husband and his new bride. With horrific consequences… This is a film in three distinct parts; each more elaborate and fiendishly enjoyable than the last. The first part, which involves the murder of a woman by her husband, and his subsequent remarriage to another woman, is a highly gothic and overwrought melodrama with distinct shades of Mario Bava a...