Sequels are great, I love sequels. But direct-to-video sequels are a wholly different beast altogether. The first film, Mirrors, stared Kiefer Sutherland and was directed by Alex Aja (the guys who brought us 3D boobs in Piranha 3D). It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad, and it was cool to see Jack Bauer (Sutherland) in a horror movie again. However, according to boxofficemojo.com, the film grossed close to $31 million, which means it wasn't a blockbuster hit by any stretch of the imagination...so why the hell did someone think anyone wanted a sequel? Submitted for your approval, and meatloaf ingredient, said unwanted sequel.

Eleanor Reigns has gone missing...and only Max Matheson (Nick "Sin City" Stahl) knows where she is...she's in the mirrors of a soon-to-be-opened department store in New Orleans. The store is owned by Max's dad, Jack (William "Greatest American Hero" Katt) and Max is helping out by pulling night watchmen duty. The last guard went psycho, chewed up glass, and nearly died on the job, so Max knows something isn't right in the eerie, cavernous store...and that would be the vengeful ghost of Eleanor who goes about following the employees of the store home and killing them through their mirrors.

One of the employees, a hottie with a wonderful pair of boobs (Christy Romano), gets her head chopped off by a piece of glass and is the film's showstopper sequence. Max starts to see visions of the murders and does some digging to find out that Eleanor actually worked at the store before he showed up there. He contacts her sister, Elizabeth (a bland Emmanuelle "Saw 2 & 4" Vaugier) and gets her help to see if they can't track down what happened to Eleanor. They look for the video files of the night she disappeared and find them missing. So they decide to go interrogate the old guard, who lives like a recluse now with all his mirrors and reflective surfaces covered and his crazy-awesome scarred face. They find out that he and Keller, the store manager, erased the footage of that night but that it might still exist in the basement.

Max and Elizabeth race back to the store to look for the footage, only to run into Keller, who wields a gun and makes it very obvious now that he is the guy who killed Eleanor. Soon Max finds Eleanor's body, but has to forget her when Keller takes Elizabeth and he has to go rescue her. But Eleanor's ghost is there and she ends up lending a hand.

This movie should really be called Reflective Surfaces 2, because Eleanor is able to attack or give Max visions through anything that reflects, even a damn puddle of water. But I guess Puddle of Water 2 wouldn't be such a great title. This wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be and while it doesn't fully deserve a 3 coffin rating, it gets it based on the great gore, excellent camera work and cinematography, and yes, the brief nudity. Was it better than the original? No, I would say they are about equal. I still don't understand how the hell her vengeful spirit got in the mirror in the first place and how she can travel around if her body is at the store and she is haunting that place. But if you throw logic out the window and just lower your expectations to watch the cheap scares, sub-par, phoned-in acting, and the copious blood and guts, you might just enjoy yourself.

- Jose Prendes