Mirror Mirror (1990)

... aka: Cauchemar Miroir (Nightmare Mirror)
... aka: Reflexo do Demônio (The Demon's Reflection)

Directed by:
Marina Sargenti

Deciding to get away from Los Angeles and start a new life after he husband passes on (and because her shrink recommends it), widow Susan Gordon (Karen Black) purchases a new home in a small Midwestern town that she and her troubled teenage daughter Megan (Rainbow Harvest) promptly move into, little realizing that a murder has already taken place there. Unlike Susan, who's kooky and aloof in that very distinctive Karen Black kinda way, puts up a bubbly appearance for the world at large and dresses in bright flowery dresses and a variety of big hats and “glamorous” wigs, Megan is sullen, pale, standoffish, can't get enough black in her wardrobe and overdoes it with the dark eye shadow and lipstick. Yes, she's Goth with a capital G and, while that may fly in the big city, it makes her an easy target for ridicule in her new small town; most especially at her high school. I'm not sure what middle schools and high schools are like nowadays for kids. Hopefully some of the newer anti-bullying policies and more awareness on the subject have helped matters somewhat but if you were a teen in the 80s or 90s, especially one living in a small town, all that acting or dressing “different” got you was a target on your back.

Immediately after Megan walks into her homeroom on her very first day, the snickering and finger pointing begins. Naturally, the most popular of the bunch, well-endowed rich girl Charlene Kane (Charlie [Spradling]), turns out to be the meanest, but none of them are anywhere near as sadistic and vicious as teens seen in other outcast-strikes-back flicks like CARRIE (1976), JENNIFER (1978), Terror Train (1980), EVILSPEAK (1981) or SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986). In those movies, the cool kids were doing things like dumping pig's blood on heads, tricking nerds into beds with naked corpses, taking incriminating nude photos and trying to get their unpopular targets raped, kidnapped or even killed. You know, things cruel enough to conceivably make one snap. In this one, they laugh, whisper and say the occasional rude, bitchy thing but keep their hands to themselves. Megan is lucky enough to find an ally in Nikki (Kristin Dattilo) right away, who befriends her on her first day of school, helps protect her and even gets her boyfriend Ron (Ricky Paull Goldin) to at least tolerate her. Not only that, but Charlene's good-looking jock boyfriend Jeff (Tom Bresnahan) finds himself attracted to her. In other words, she's hardly in a Carrie White type of situation. Still, some of her peers are decidedly not nice and manage to get on Megan's bad side. Luckily for her, a helpful little gift was left behind from the previous tenants (one rumored to be a witch): an antique mirror that has the ability to grant wishes. Only these wishes come with a nasty kick since the mirror is actually a portal to “the other side” where demons dwell.

Megan first learns of the mirror's power when she wishes her deceased father was still around. He shows up later that night in her bedroom, only in corpse form, and she quickly wishes him away. Because she asked it for something, the mirror then begins working its magic and takes it upon itself to start acting out Megan's innermost desires (whether she really wants it or not); eventually taking possession of her. The mirror bleeds and fester with flies, gives Charlene a nasty nose bleed and makes a science teach (Stephen Tobolowsky) have an asthma attack so bad he has to be hauled off on a stretcher. And then people start dying. All the while, Megan builds up enough self-confidence to be a bit more assertive and starts dressing sexier. Elsewhere, antique dealer Emelin (Yvonne De Carlo), who's in charge of sorting through the belongings from the old house, stumbles upon a diary from the previous tenant which talks about the mirror and its powers. She then studies up on her demonology and comes to the conclusion that she has to try to find a way to get it back again, even if that means breaking into the house and stealing it.

There's a decent amount of blood and gore to help offset just how derivative the whole thing is, including a stabbing, death by flying shards of glass, clawed demon hands emerging from the mirror to make someone's head a bloody mess, a lip getting bitten off and maggots festering in a chicken wing to ruin pet cemetery owner William Sanderson's din-din. The two most memorable bits are Black painting the kitchen red when her hand gets stuck in a garbage disposal and the voluptuous Spradling providing some nice nudity before getting hot steamed in the locker room shower. There's the occasional bit of strange humor (some of which is actually amusing) and clever POV shots from inside the mirror looking out, which utilize a blue hue and distorted sound. This also boasts above average performances from most of the cast. Black is her usual scene-stealing self as the quirky yet self-absorbed mom, De Carlo contributes a nice character bit and nearly all of the younger actors are good, most especially the extremely likable Dattilo as the fun, non-judgmental nice girl that pretty much anyone would want as a friend. Well except for Megan, who can't seem to appreciate much of anything. Speaking of Megan, I do have one major complaint about this one and that's with the casting and scripting of this all-important central role...

While Harvest isn't completely terrible in the part, what she does here could best be described as flat and uninspired. Though the script doesn't do her any favors, her character is almost completely devoid of personality. She's neither interesting nor sympathetic. She's just kind of there looking a bit bored. One gets the feeling that the petite, wide-eyed actress was cast simply because she resembles Winona Ryder, who just played a Goth teen in the horror-comedy hit Beetlejuice (1988). The hair and wardrobe people even style her exactly like Lydia Deetz. The difference? Well, Lydia is good-hearted, drolly funny, clever and likable behind her morbid facade while Megan is pretty much the polar opposite of all that. It's also difficult to get behind the character's “revenge” when she's befriended by a very cool chick her first day of school, gets the attention of the hottest guy there and has a mother who's actually interested in improving their relationship, not to mention the fact that the worst thing the bullies can come up with to do to her is organize a “Dress Like Megan” day and come to school all Gothed out. Lydia would have found that amusing.

The original VHS release from Academy came with a holographic cover featuring the mirror demon reaching its hands out with a tilt of the box.

Filmed in the summer of 1989, this received a limited theatrical release in 1990 from New City Releasing before being ushered out onto home video in 1991. Director Sargenti, formerly a music producer and a director of music videos and commercials, went on to make the TV movie Child of Darkness, Child of Light (1991), which also featured Dattilo. Producer Jimmy Lifton composed the score and went on to direct, produce, write and score the first of three sequels: Mirror Mirror 2: Raven Dance (1993). He also produced Mirror Mirror III: The Voyeur (1995), co-directed by Virginia Perfili (who appears here as a teacher) and Rachel Gordon and Mirror Mirror IV: Reflection (2000), directed by his wife, Paulette Victor. All four titles were bundled together for a DVD release through Starz / Anchor Bay.

★★

Nao mo (1983)

... aka: 腦魔
... aka: ปีศาจมันสมอง
... aka: Black Magic with Buddha
... aka: Blackmagic with Buhda, The
... aka: Black Magic with Butchery
... aka: Magic Brains
... aka: Monster Brains

Directed by:
Lieh Lo

Director Lo knows all about black magic, but we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here. Born in 1939 under the name Lida Wang in Pematangsiantar, Indonesia to Cantonese parents, Lo immigrated to Hong Kong as a teenager. While still in his early 20s, he started training in martial arts and soon became a member of Shaw Brothers' stable of talent. Several years before Bruce Lee became internationally famous, Lo became the studio's very first kung fu superstar in his breakthrough film The Invincible Fist (1969). Many more martial arts films would follow in the 60s and 70s, most famously the cult classic Five Fingers of Death (1972), but because of the actor's perpetually angry look and brutal fighting techniques, he found himself being typecast almost exclusively as villains. The same intense persona and screen presence would later land him a lead role in Shaw's BLACK MAGIC (1975), where he played the obsessive admirer of a rich woman who attempts to use black magic to get both the beauty and her money. The film was so popular it resulted in a sequel, BLACK MAGIC, PART II (1976), the following year with Lo playing a powerful 80-year-old sorcerer who retains his youthful looks by drinking breast milk (!) and spends much of his time casting spells on the unsuspecting cast in order to get sex and line his bank account. Those two roles certainly prepared Lo for this one; his first and only foray into the genre as director. He also plays a sorcerer here (though a good one this time) but doesn't even appear until the second half of the film.

Indebted to a man who saved his life but has since passed, Master Abdulla repays him by taking his son Ben Chin (“Chau Koon” / Kuan Tai Chen) deep in the Indonesian jungles to a cave where its rumored a powerful sorcerer is buried. After they locate the tomb, Abdulla performs a ritual and instructs Ben to stab the mummified sorcerer through the heart with the dagger. The head cracks right open and the brain is put into a box. According to Abdulla, Ben should use it just one time to grant any wish he wants but after that he's to destroy the brain with holy water. If he doesn't and decides to get greedy, well, there's no telling what horrible consequences may befall him and those he loves. After the two men leave, the cave shakes, catches fire and blows up.

Ben flies home to Hong Kong and is easily able to get through security because the brain can appear and disappear whenever it wants. He meets up with his girlfriend Annie (Candice Yu) and her sister-in-law Mary (Sinjai Hongthai) and accompanies the two to the hospital to visit their ailing father (Boo Wibunnan). Though pops gives his blessing of marriage, Annie's controlling brother Kit (Pumi Patanayut) steps in and forbids it; demanding his potential future brother-in-law get his shit together and start making more money first. Ben then consults the magical pulsating brain. He gives it an offering of animal brain that it eagerly slurps up and then prays to it to give him a million dollars so he can marry Annie. Not long after, Ben's stingy sister (Linda Chu) is murdered by some kind of heavy-breathing supernatural force that knocks her off the roof and then throws her through a window. Ben inherits the million dollars from her death, which is enough... for the time being. However, he makes the big mistake of not destroying the brain, which comes back to haunt him in a big way.

After getting married, Ben and Annie's happy home quickly becomes a house of horrors. He gets caught up in a blood shower. She spots something shiny and slimy slithering up the walls. A dead monkey with its brains eaten is found on the floor, followed by a dead brainless dog outside. Ben wants to start a gold reserve investment company and goes to his father-in-law for a loan, but Kit sticks his nose in once again and insinuates that the only reason he married into the family was for money. Ben goes home and prays to the evil brain once more, which ends with the brother-in-law getting attacked and killed in his bathtub by a bunch of bloodsucking brains! After Annie's weak-hearted father and the now-widowed Mary move in with them, Ben continues using the brain and soon finds his father-in-law offering to sign over everything he owns to him. He also discovers he now has little control over the brain, especially after Annie accidentally destroys the vial of holy water needed to destroy it. Attempts to bury it, burn it, beat it to a pulp with a shovel and even squashing it under a huge rock don't work.

While Ben continues to be haunted by the brain, Annie has a religious conversion after visiting a shrine and seeing the eyes on a statue of “The God of 4 Faces” glow. She suddenly becomes “at peace” (completely complacent), throws out all of her make-up, becomes a vegetarian and refuses to have sex with her husband. Thinking she's under a spell, Ben goes to visit a white-haired old sorcerer (the director), who performs an exorcism that has Ben puking up brain matter. Things get even crazier once a reanimated 8-armed statue, a serene Buddha spirit (with a red Swastika painting on its chest!) and the sorcerer all combine forces in an effort to stop the Brain Devil, which eventually takes over Ben's body and turns him into a bloody, gloopy monster.

This HK / Thai co-production was released independently through the director's own fledgling company Lo's Films and appears to be their only release. You may be reminded of such later films as The Brain and Brain Damage while watching it, but it gets sillier and messier the longer it goes on. The disco song “Don't Let Go” (the same one Ed Harris dances to in Creepshow) is heard during a bar scene. It was never released in the U.S. and has only received VHS and VCD releases in Asia. The Thai release (the one I watched whose title translates to "Monster Brains") has burnt in English subtitles. Elaine Jin also has a small role.

★★