Mirror Mirror 3: The Voyeur

The third movie in the "Mirror Mirror" series marked the point where the franchise abandoned horror for soft-core porn. The movie has very little, if any, violence, and the demon that lived in the mirror in the previous two films never shows up. Instead we're treated to Billy Drago having sex almost continuously throughout the hour-and-a-half run-time.

Is there anyone out there - anyone at all - who wants to see that? With his long, angular face and pleading eyes, Drago looks like a drug addled vampire. The IMDB description calls him a "young man", but he was already grey and pot-bellied in this movie.

Perhaps they meant Ruffalo, who they probably should have cast as the lead - though one appearance in this series should have been enough for him. He does get one sex scene, which is a relief because it makes a break from seeing half-naked Billy Drago with his beady eyes and barely-there face pecking away at whatever soft-core actress was in this.

Drago's weird appearance makes him a more convincing demon than the ones that appeared in the first two "Mirror Mirror" flicks. But the question of why the filmmakers thought we'd want to watch him on the job is perhaps better left unanswered.

The plot of this entry in the series is something to do with an artist who may or may not move into a house with the haunted mirror the whole series of movies revolves around. Looking into the mirror, or being in the same room with it, apparently triggers flashbacks or visions of Hispanic drug dealers in some completely neutered would-be action movie sequences that don't generate anything but boredom. A lady who is killed by the drug dealers comes through the mirror and has sex with Drago.

This set-up is repeated at least a few times and then the movie ends.

I have reservations about even calling "Mirror Mirror 3" a movie. It feels more like the directors' (there are two, perhaps because the main one didn't know how to turn the camera on) audition tape for "The Red Shoe Diaries". This is not an audition they would have passed.

Wow, I bought the Mirror, Mirror boxed set. Part 1 is a classic. Part 2 is good. And I had not seen 3. I heard it was bad but wowwwwwwwww. It is bad. This is one of the worst films I have seen in my life. It looks like a 2 year old made it. No, a 2 year old could of done better. I am amazed by this crap. The acting sucks. The directing sucks. The special effects suck. The quality of the film sucks. I cannot say one good thing about this film except Jimmy Lifton's score is still around and that is good music. I cannot think of another positive thing about this film. UGh all it is is these 2 people having sex for an hour and a half then some people die. The mirror does look the same as in the other films but that does not matter. Nothing on Earth can save this miserable piece of crap. 1/10

The third instalment of the MIRROR MIRROR franchise, which started out fairly averagely and degraded in quality for the first sequel. This one is the worst yet. The story sees Billy Drago (amusingly described as a 'young man' in the synopsis) who comes into possession of the cursed mirror and soon finds himself haunted by a dream succubus with whom he has regular softcore sex. There's also support from David Naughton as a cop investigating some murders and an annoying Mark Ruffalo playing a different character to the one he played in the last film. This is an extremely diluted experience in terms of horror, and for the most part it just offers repetitive nudity and little more. The always-interesting Drago deserved better.

A seventeen-minute prologue, which we are informed took place two months prior, in a second sequel to a second-rate horror film? Sure, why not. Two recognizable stars, one up-and-comer (now more famous than the others), and a relative of an even more famous actor? You bet! Lovingly shot but empty and nevertheless prolific love scenes, acting that is almost uniformly either limp or overdone, dubious sequencing and editing, and dialogue, scene writing, and direction that one could be forgiven for thinking came from the mind of Tommy Wiseau? Check! It really seems from the start that scribe Steve Tymon was straining to summon workable story ideas when all he actually had to do was focus on an evil mirror. Two credited directors were both equally unable to shape this into a cohesive, meaningful, or baseline interesting form, nevermind a tantalizing or exciting one. The music here is even more bland and milquetoast than it was in either of the previous films. I'm supposing it was producer Jimmy Lifton, the common link of these titles, that decided 'Mirror mirror III: The voyeur' was a good idea. Producer Jimmy Lifton, however, was deeply mistaken.

The 1990 progenitor was no peak of horror, nor storytelling or film-making, but it was overall pretty well done and enjoyable. The first sequel, 'Raven dance,' was marked by direly weak writing, direction, and acting, a desperately inferior follow-up to a less than stellar product, but at least it had a cute cat. One tends to assume diminishing returns in movie series, horror above all, and we've seen that trend time and again. This series, however, went from "hey, this is pretty decent" to "by the gods, this is awful" to "bafflingly dull, languid, and useless." In fact, it's readily apparent that this 1995 dud was intended to be and built as an erotic thriller first and foremost, a few hairs shy of softcore, with the genre element mostly represented in the mere presence of a ghost who in life dabbled in magic doodads. It's not until we're almost two-thirds through the length that the mirror even really comes into play, and as it does we're treated to another sore spot in this production, which was absolutely bottom-dollar visual effects. Action sequences are pretty much downright senseless. A more concrete horror aspect does show up in the last third, but it is very thin and insufficient.

The most interesting and clever 'The voyeur' gets is arguably in a short, throwaway scene in which Mark Ruffalo's character is preparing a sandwich, and with the space of a couple minutes the scene makes small references to this picture's predecessors. Those facets of the story centering David Naughton or Richard Cansino's characters are all but completely superfluous. When the horror does show up more firmly n the last stretch it gives a surprising tiny boost to the proceedings, but it's not nearly enough all on its own to count for much in the grand scheme of things. There's some nice lighting, perhaps, and art direction, and practical effects. But what else about this feature comes off well? I'm hard-pressed to name anything. I had low expectations and still I'm flummoxed by how terribly meek this is. That the last act is marginally stronger than the preceding length saves this from the extreme bottom of the barrel, but for as flaccid as the presentation is in almost every single way, the distinction is almost totally meaningless. Whatever it is that you think you might get out of 'Mirror Mirror III,' I regret to inform that you are gravely mistaken, and I urge all potential viewers to more wisely spend their time elsewhere.

This movie has some good naked bewbs. And Mark Ruffalo and Billy Drago.