I had no idea there was more than one film in this franchise, let alone three. Technically there are four but you’ll have to wait on that. For now, let’s look at Mirror Mirror 3: The Voyeur and hope it improves upon the last one.
SPOILERS: My editor left for Coachella three weeks ago. She sent a telegram from Western Union, begging for bail money, which I promptly gave to my pet cockatoo for nesting material. Spoilers will ensue.
Eye Spy With My Little Eye
The basics of this story are as follows:
Man and woman in luuurve. Man is a tortured artist; woman is married to a drug dealer but doesn’t love him. Obvi. Woman is into the occult or witchcraft or something and she uses rituals and THAT DAMNED MIRROR to get her heart’s desires, which includes the man, even if it’s after her own demise.
Cassandra and Anthony, said drug dealer’s wife and sensitive artiste, are super into each other. If it wasn’t for her paying-the-bills scumbag hubby, they could be together forever. She does try to secure that possibility. While Anthony is off at some art gallery for a show, Cassandra plots and attempts to kill her husband, Julio. Unfortunately, she gets sucked into the mirror and he gets a gut wound for his troubles.
Don’t worry, gentle reader. Julio gets his – eventually – after tricking some corrupt cop, boasting about a hidden stash of hundreds of thousands of dollars in his house, then running away like a little bitch to party up with a bunch of fellow scuzzballs, hooch, and hookers.
Two months later, Anthony moves into Cassandra’s old house.
Like…what? I understand the “creativity and inspiration come from the strangest places” but you gotta be fucking kidding me.
Anthony’s new squeeze, and art gallery owner, Carolyn, would agree with me because she thinks its fucking weird, and he just needs to get over Cassandra already. She’s also hooking up with Anthony’s bro, Joey, on the side because… reasons? Oh, wait. I know. So the writers/directors/producers could turn this into a Skinamax movie. Right. Sorry. I forgot.
Anyway, as you might imagine, inspiration…comes…quite often in this house. Eventually, that corrupt cop weasels his way into the home under the guise of looking for Cassandra, who disappeared before Julio’s death at the hands of the aforementioned scuzzballs and hookers. He’s really looking for the hidden money and boy, does he get more than he bargains for. In fact, they all do. The cop dies; Carolyn dies; Joey dies; Anthony get trapped in the mirror…
Shit, I’d nearly forgotten about that damned (literally) thing. Kinda took a back seat to all the sex and betrayals and criminal shenanigans.
…and Cassandra turns into a pile of dust…question mark… question mark?
Sweetie, We’re Not in High School Anymore
Well, if you’re here hoping for another crazy little teenage romp with evil, you’d better take a knee. This is not your mom’s Mirror Mirror, unless your mom likes it down at the shipyards when the long haul fishermen come back from a month at sea.
I’m not sure who hired writer Steve Tymon for this script, but if you scan his movie credits on IMDB, it becomes abundantly clear. I’m also not sure why this flick took the more adult route. Maybe they wanted to switch things up, not take the kiddie ride anymore. One of the directors, Rachel Gordon, has much the same type of filmography as Steve. But the second director, Virginia Perfili, who also wrote for 2Mirror Mirror 2 and executive produced the first three Mirror Mirror movies, is all over the map with her film credits.
So, I just don’t get why or how they ended up in the back room of the video store… and why did it take two directors to get there?
There were not two sex scenes. Not three. Not even four. There were FIVE total, either present timeline or in flashback. We’re talking soft core levels here. I’m no expert and I’m no prude. And, if I’m honest, seeing Monique Parent (Cassandra) get all kinds of naked gave me the tingles. But by the third boinkfest, it felt like filler THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID just to pad the running time.
Those, the extensive flashback scenes, and the longest shootout to ever besmirch the silver screen, like the skid marks did to your bro’s tightie whities, just made the movie drag on waaaay too long. Without all this fucking around (literally in some cases) the flick probably would have been 25 minutes. Which is fine for porn, because who’s lasting that long anyway, but not for some low-budget horror thriller wanna be.
I need a bit more substance in my horror than a few titty closeups and a half dozen cuts of flashback nonsense.
It Ain’t All Bad Bro
While this does have quite a few of the usual suspects of issues for low budget horror (for some reason one particular room in the house had absolute terrible sound – maybe the boom mic broke; maybe the boom operator called in sick), there are a couple things I did like.
Billy Drago was always a joy to watch in anything he did. He had a little of the Crispin Glover mystique but without the off-putting, trying a little too hard persona, you know? Drago belonged in any production he chose and as Anthony, he played a convincing and sympathetic guy who just wants to make art and love the woman he’s obsessed with.
I’d never seen any of Monique Parent’s film work before. I know the 90s were her domain and she was called “the thinking man’s sex symbol” so I was pretty jazzed to watch this. She was quite the force to behold. I really enjoyed her performance, though I feel if Cassandra were portrayed with a little more sympathy, the character would have been even better.
And I’m not sure how this started, but there’s a pattern in the Mirror Mirror movies to utilize the same actors from one film to play a completely different character in the direct sequel. William Sanderson played Mr. Veze in part one, then Roger in part two. Little baby Mark Ruffalo played Christian in part two, and now Joey in part three. And my keen Googling abilities have told me that Billy Drago, Anthony in part three, will return for part four as Fredrick Champion.
So hold on to your tits for that upcoming review.
Basically, the acting talent in these flicks surpasses everything else, and this sequel was no exception.
In conclusion, I have to say I enjoyed this third installment only slightly better than the last movie. But keep in mind, at this point Mirror Mirror has become an erotic thriller with the cursed mirror feeling more like an afterthought, as opposed to an indie horror about the easily manipulated traits of angsty teenagers. One and two are apples. Three is an orange.
Fruit salad anyone?
2 margaritas (out of 5)