Mirror Mirror (1990)

 

Director: Marina Sargenti

Screenplay: Annette Cascone, Gina Cascone, Marina Sargenti and Yuri Zeltser

Cast: Rainbow Harvest as Megan Gordon; Karen Black as Susan Gordon; Yvonne De Carlo as Emelin; William Sanderson as Mr. Veze; Kristin Dattilo as Nikki Chandler; Ricky Paull Goldin as Ron; Charlie Spradling as Charleen Kane

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies)

 

Mirror, Mirror is a work which has gained traction - even appearing on Sight & Sound magazine's 100 overlooked films directed by women¹ - and it deserves so with the interest that, whilst the first sequel Mirror, Mirror II: Raven Dance (1994) would be directed by the co-composer/producer of the first film, Jimmy Lifton, this is a franchise that immediately stands out for having women in prominent creative roles especially with its first film, a female director working with a script by women in horror genre. How few female directors in horror cinema, let alone in others, came to be up to the 2000s onwards is not a subject to attempt to brooch here, as it would likely be a long document of possible sexism that should be written by an entirely different person than myself, but this comes sadly with knowledge that Mirror, Mirror is a good film, and that, unfortunately, director Marina Sargenti has only made a few other titles and episodes of television. This is a shame knowing alongside her collaborators onscreen and off it, this takes a concept from an old radio horror program, a cursed mirror, and gives it a nicely fleshed out form within context of peer pressure in high school.

The co-screenwriters Annette Cascone and Gina Cascone are sisters, and authors of the  Deadtime Stories children's horror book series under the name AG Cascone, which perfectly sums up how, with this screenplay earlier on in their horror writing career, the tone of Mirror, Mirror if a significantly more adult and graphic tale in presentation takes a very simple premise and interprets it through the ordinary life of a teenager. A nefarious mirror, possessed by a demon, exists which in the prologue causes a twin to stab her sister to death in 1939. Mary Weatherwood, the surviving sister, practiced witchcraft only to summon the demon, forcing it into the mirror when she realised what she had done. Unfortunately, as with all cursed objects, someone is bond to find it and unleash its horrors in the future, which happens for a single woman Susan Gordon (Karen Black) and especially her teen daughter Megan (Rainbow Harvest), an alienated Goth starting a new life in a new school who appropriates the mirror for her own room.

Obviously, this takes the idea of the horror trope, a cursed mirror, for a stand in for real emotional issues, in this case that she obviously stands out in her new school, and that even if there is a sympathetic voice on her side, Nikki (Kristin Dattilo), Megan is an outcast who is disconnected from her mother and immediately bullied by the popular girls at the school. The mirror, when not creating a hallucination of her recently deceased father to scare her, starts to play off the power fantasy to want to punish those who hurt her. This starts with placating with less deadly if scary acts for her, like a giant endless nosebleed in the middle of the lunch hall, before actual death including being steamed to death in the women's showers transpiring when Megan is in the downward spiral and willingly become complicit in these crimes.

The film even references horror films before in this plot type, even explicitly Carrie (1976) by Brian De Palma, so it is aware of its place in the genre canon, of horror dealing with peer pressure and how schools. With the prim and hyper exaggerated Charleen Kane (Charlie Spradling), the wannabe class president who overdoes the campaign promo with US election day decorations and videos, as the antagonist, school is depicted here as a strange manufactured place where hierarchies and codes that could tragically come into place to hurt those seen as bottom of the pecking order. This is still a horror film in tone; it is incredibly gory including an unfortunate encounter with the waste disposal unit in a kitchen sink, and the scene in the showers, whilst this has to be viewed in an entirely different light from the idea of the "male gaze" from who was making the film, does not hide the human form if noticeably not as salacious as it could have been for an over-the-top sequence. It is however contrasted, befitting its co-screenwriters' later vocation, by emphasis on the tragedy of our lead, who as played by Rainbow Harvest, immediately captures our sympathies even if her leaning in willingly killing people to allow friends to win elections is understandably horrifying. Harvest herself merely stopped appearing in films and television after 1991, with nothing else to add barring which she gracefully walked away from a short career in television movies, television and this film. It is a shame, as she does add so much into the lead role here, especially one the additional tragedy here is that, with the friendship between Nikki and Mega strong until the end, it becomes more a tale of a confused person unfortunately trapped in this scenario.

Credit also has to be given to composer/producer Jimmy Lifton for the synth score. An additional figure, Scott Campbell, contributes a song too, and he adds an unexpected layer to the productions for how his career as a punk musician for the band The Sillies became important in Detroit, Michigan, especially when they were allowed booking of the music club Bookies Club 870 in the late seventies, with the likes of The Cramps to The Misfits among others being allowed to perform somewhere where they would get greater attention². The score itself is old school horror synth, befitting as whilst this is still a drama at heart, it depicts it through surges of phantasmagoria, embracing it fully by its ending bending reality (and bringing the fog machine in) whilst not losing its original point. That it is about adolescence, where mind controlling the popular guy at school to love you is wrong, but comes from the pangs of desire and trying to express it, even if tragically with a body count. I am glad to have finally seen the film, and it is nice to know that, whether their quality next to the first film, Mirror, Mirror did return with sequels with their own stories, Mirror Mirror 2: Raven Dance (1994), Mirror, Mirror III: The Voyeur (1995), and Mirror, Mirror IV: Reflection (2000); even for the first sequel women were in prominent creative slots, and three out of four of them are directed by women, so it is nice to now, alongside the virtues of the original by itself, this became one of those franchises with women in prominent creative and directorial roles, something sadly still not as common place as one hopes.  

 

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1) The female gaze: 100 overlooked films directed by women, updated on January 2nd 2022 for the British Film Institute website.

2) Bookies Club 870's Local Wiki page.