I have absolutely no idea how something as trite as a surface with a reflective metal coat has become one of the main staples of horror fiction, but here we are to find out why.
Reflections, whether on glass, mirror or water, have always had confrontational, psychological, existential and inherently uncanny undertones in what they might (or might not) show us and what that might stir up inside - from Narcissus to Poltergeist.
A mirror, or a reflective surface in the broader sense (a television screen, a photographic lens, a camera's eye, a celluloid film, etc.), shows the bare truth - and yet it is impossible for us to touch, smell, hear or taste that truth. We can only see it. So on the one hand it has the claim of reliability, but lacks depth. There is a conflict there. It is not our world, thus it must be a different one. It is illusion through and through and yet tells us so much about ourselves and our fears; vanity, introspection, evil twins, parallel universes, the future... What's not to like in that, from a horror movie fan's point of view?
Luckily horror cinema has more than enough movies with iconic mirror scenes, to the point of exhaustion really, for us to gorge on them. And then come here and talk about them.
The idea emerged when I was telling a friend of mine about the early 90s feature film "Mirror Mirror" that I saw during the Final Girls Underdog Marathon and we realized how often the motif is used in horror movies. So I made a little selection, about ten to fifteen movies, that I'll be watching, re-watching and then discussing here, and that will reflect the manifold ways in which mirrors have made it into horror. The first movie is in today's post, enjoy!
Do watch the movies before reading my post if spoilers bother you because I will spoiler everything!
Stories about serial killers violently and sometimes inventively killing sex workers in London have a traditional place in true crime/crime/horror realms that can take fetishistic dimensions. One of them, photographer and serial killer Mark Lewis, has found a demonically inventive way to terrorize his victims as much as physically and psychologically possible - he films them while he kills them, but that's not all. He has invented an elaborate mechanism with which he stabs his victims with an elongated knife, above which a biggish mirror is installed, so that the last thing the woman sees in her life is her own face contorted in utmost dread. And he has it all on film, so he can take it home, get off on it and add it to his twisted and sick little collection of women he killed and filmed oh so cruelly.
There is a backstory to this, though. Mark's father used to be a scientist who used his son as a guinea pig and put him willingly into situations where he would be scared, like throwing a lizard into his bed or even filming him on his mother's deathbed (!). So Mark turned out to be a shy and psychologically disturbed person, and I know, not everyone mistreated or tortured by their parents turns out to be a killer, but in this case Mark does. If you think about it, it all makes somewhat sense.
As a consequence, Mark is fascinated with witnessing fear, something that has been done to him throughout all his childhood and the one thing he knows well (again - I don't think mistreated children are doomed to repeat their mistreatment in adulthood, but Mark Lewis happens to do so). As a part-time photographer of soft-porn pin-up pictures, he chose a profession where he'll be close to the women he victimizes and he also aspires to be a filmmaker. He doesn't have any deep or meaningful friendships except for his neighbor Helen who shows great interest in him and who has a blind mother who is nevertheless able to see how messed up Mark is.
The mirror: Not only is the mirror the object of utmost voyeuristic perversity here, it also reflects our own, the horror audience's, voyeuristic tendencies while watching the movies we love so much and thus has a "meta" character which is quite ahead of its time for a movie shot in 1960. The film opens with a shocking demonstration of the insidious mechanism when Mark kills a sex worker he hires on the street, and goes on to photograph and film and kill women he works with. Anyone but Helen, really. The mirror is to provide Mark his kick, while it brings about a sad ending to his victims, almost mocking their justified feelings, using their ruin for his pleasure. Spine chilling and tragic.
Next up we're jumping to the 80s with three movies made in this kooky and somewhat tacky decade: Prince of Darkness (1987), Evil Dead 2 (1987) and Poltergeist (1988). Let's see how they used mirrors to scare.
Stay safe!
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