“She thinks she’s, like, the lead in a horror flick or something.”: Reflections on MIRROR MIRROR

Rating: 🏐🏐🏐🏐

[Trailer]

Before writing this, I’d never watched Mirror Mirror. It had been sitting on my ever-growing movie watch list for a hot minute, but I had never set aside the time to take it for a spin. However, like The Slumber Party Massacre (which I also wrote about, go figure), it kept popping up on every list I found about female directed horror movies, and with February being Women in Horror month, I finally decided to mark this one off my list with my popcorn-scented highlighter (which is a real thing I own). 

Mirror Mirror, at least to me, watches like a Fear Street novel reads (without being affiliated with R.L. Stein, obviously). It stars Rainbow Harvest as Megan Gordon, the new girl in town, who is a couple of bang snips away from getting a big ol’ copyright infringement notice from Tim Burton for ripping off Lydia Deetz. Megan, along with her mother, Karen Black’s Susan Gordon (a mixture of Catherine O’Hara’s Delia Deetz and Catherine O’Hara’s Moira Rose), move into a cursed house after the death of her father. Naturally, Megan takes to a vintage mirror that just so happens to be possessed by a wish-granting demon. However, if we know anything from any horror movie ever, it’s that wishes never, ever, EVER come true without some major repercussions (but at least we’re spared the awful rhymes of the Leprechaun franchise). Megan befriends Kristin Dattilo’s Nikki Chandler, much to the chagrin of Nikki’s boyfriend, Ron, played by Ricky Paull Goldin. The two bond in gym class, as every new high school friendship in cinema is wont to do (Clueless, anyone?) and soon become close. 

Once Megan accidentally resurrects her dead father (who comes back as Daddy Fearest and chokes her), Megan realizes the true power of the mirror. Whether it be mean girls from school or her mother’s beloved poodles (not cool), the mirror’s bloodlust is unbiased. As the bodies start piling up, Megan and Nikki’s friendship begins to deteriorate. At first, Nikki believes Megan is losing her mind, but soon, the evidence is undeniable, and Nikki realizes Megan is being controlled by something hellish (and I don’t just mean hormones). 

After leading to her mother’s mitt mangling in a garbage disposal (which is honestly one of my absolute nightmares), Megan begins to realize this is out of control. (Yes, it takes MULTIPLE dead bodies for Megan to say “when”). However, in a fit of teen angst, she kills Ron, leading Nikki to try to vanquish Megan. In a twist, we’re brought back to Nikki and Megan, who may or may not have been sisters and/or best friends in the 1950s, which we see for a couple of seconds when the movie starts. The demon comes out of the mirror, Nikki does some defensive maneuvers, and she covers the mirror while holding the dead (?) Megan. Now, if those last couple of sentences don’t make sense, that’s because I, myself, am still a little confused about the ending. The best I can manage is that Nikki and Megan are tied by fate and that by Nikki wishing for everything to be back to how it was, it sent them back to the very beginning of their story. Even though they may not remember it, they were always meant to find each other, and unfortunately, they were always meant have some sort of relationship with the mirror. Honestly, it was 1990, and the majority of the cast and crew were badass women, so I’m not going to challenge it. 

Marina Sargenti’s Mirror Mirror is the epitome of a beer and pizza movie; it’s a good flick to watch with a group of friends that is good enough to fully enjoy and bad enough to slightly riff on. Karen Black’s kooky, poodle-toting, and wig-wearing Susan doesn’t put the Scream Queen at her best, but it’s certainly fun, and she nails the character. Rainbow Harvest’s Megan really lays into the “high school outcast” stereotype, but it’s not too painful. Kristin Dattilo’s Nikki is the perfect bubbly and popular foil for Megan. 

Again, this watches like a Fear Street novel, but that isn’t a dig; it’s meant as a high compliment. It hits all of those little pieces of nostalgia, like lying out on my trampoline in the summer in middle and high school, with a slightly-worn copy (I was in high school in 2007, so I missed the initial release of them) of the likes of Who Killed The Homecoming Queen? in hand. Even without the bringing back the better parts of my adolescence, this movie was delightful from start to finish. There’s no need to wish for anything more.