MIRRORS 2 - UNRATED

I watched MIRRORS about a year and a half ago and found it to be one of the most creepy, atmospheric horror movies I'd seen in a long time, with Kiefer Sutherland doing a band-up role as a paranoid security guard in a burned-out, haunted department store. Even though THE RING 2 has taught me to be very leery of horror sequels to original and scary films, I decided to give this one a go last night and was really not terribly disappointed.
Max (Nick Stahl) is an emotionally devastated twentysomething trying to recover from losing his fiancee in a car accident a year before. His father is the owner of a soon-to-be-opened department store in New Orleans, decorated with mirrors which apparently came from the old burned out store from the original movie. When the night guard at the facility sees something in the mirror so horrible that he slashes his face to bits with broken glass (or DOES he??), Max's Dad asks him to take on the job so that he doesn't have to do an employee search at the last minute. He introduces Max to the three execs that are going to run the new store, and then Max assumes his duties. Soon Max is seeing the corpselike ghost of a young woman in the store's mirrors, and the three execs begin meeting terrible fates one by one. What does the ghost in the mirror want? Can Max save his father - and himself - from her vengeful spirit? Can anyone in this movie manage to put on their makeup or shave without the mirror going freaky on them?

This was not as good as the original, which is one of my very favorite horror films, but it isn't bad either. Stahl does a great job as the protagonist, and the story is fairly credible. The kills are very gory (gotta love the shower scene!) and the CGI is well done and subtle. A good Halloween viewing - and while it is independent of the first film, if you're going to watch one, I still say the first was better. If, like me, you enjoyed the first one, this one dishes up the same kind of chills, even more gore and nudity, without being too derivative.