My dear readers, though it has cost me some currency in social scenarios, I take great pains to avoid prolonged exposure to mirrors. Vanity never took up a particularly strong current with the bulk of the Hauntedhouse lineage and horror movies have instilled in me a healthy suspicion of what one might find hovering nearby the moment a mirror is introduced. Furthermore, I have always sought to avoid the fate of my Great Uncle Balthazar Hauntedhouse, who developed an antagonistic relationship with his reflection that often escalated into hysterics. Whenever he came for a visit, one could hear the both of them shouting at one another through all hours of the night. 

This is all to say that while I cannot directly identify with Deborah Martin (Lisa Vidal), who is drawn to all manner of reflection-bearing instruments, I admire the blazing soul of artistry that she represents. Though Deborah has not established her professional photography bona fides and self-deprecatingly refers to herself as a mere housewife, she has the fearless qualities of the finest artists. She is completely unafraid to try new things, like wearing clothing found stuffed in a chimney that may belong to a murdered woman or deciding to purchase a house after seeing no more than the entryway. Sadly, this whimsical and unquestioning nature is the very reason Deborah and her family move into a new abode without being briefed on its mysterious past. Soon, she finds phantoms in every reflective surface, the subjects of her photographs go inexplicably missing and reading materials about trapping Chinese ghosts become curiously topical.

Dark Mirror is the sort of familial supernatural tale where a family’s limited contact with the supernatural makes one of them seem a little batty. In this case it’s the matriarch and let me tell you, she is given plenty of material to work with - - Chinese spirit glass, magic mirrors, missing persons, vanishing doors, ghost sightings, hooded reaper figures, a painter and his family who went missing in their new house and overly-watchful Asian neighbors. It puts quite a bit of pressure on her husband Jim (David Chisum) who has a big project at work to worry about and her son Ian (Joshua Pelegrin) who is suitably alarmed by his mother’s eccentric behavior.

Despite the myriad of disparate elements Dark Mirror tosses together, much of it comes down to how our own views provide a poor reflection of the world around us, how our own fears and prejudices color our perception of reality. The elitists among my profession will surely cry about how this is hardly the most novel or profound territory but just because a subject is easily grasped and well-worn doesn’t mean it isn’t worth another feature length treatment. It would be misleading to say that this film represents a bounty of new material but like movies that remind us that racism is distasteful and family is important, Dark Mirror serves to solidify our base of essential truths so that we can go on to wrestle with more challenging concepts.

Dark Mirror runs 86 minutes and has not been rated by the MPAA.