Ten years after the death of their parents a brother and sister return to their family home to face the cause of their trauma, a haunted mirror. Tim has spent his youth in a mental facility where he was incarcerated for killing their father. Kaylie grew up in foster care. She has spent years looking into the ownership of the mirror discovering its bloody history. The mirror literally sucks the life out of its owners beginning in Scotland and ending in America. She has taken the mirror from the auction house where she works to their family home to destroy it.
Kaylie sets up video equipment to get proof of the mirror's powers. This also includes setting timers to remember to eat and drink. She has her fiance call her every hour on the hour to check in that everything is okay. She sets up plants to set a perimeter. When the plants die the mirror's influence has spread. She even has a machine set up to destroy the mirror. But the mirror will do everything it can to keep itself safe.
The siblings discuss what happened those last few days as we see flashbacks to those events. Kaylie keeps trying to remind Tim of what happened. He refutes all of her arguments with logic and psychology. She says the mirror caused their dad to kill their mom. He says their parents were in a bad marriage and their mom had mental health issues. They each see their past through a different lens. Whose memories are correct?
The longer they spend in the house with the mirror the more things fall apart. They each begin to see and hear things. Phones can't be trusted inside the house. Tim starts to remember things he has forgotten. Both of their parents begin to behave strangely. Their mom is paranoid that the father is having an affair. Their father spends more time isolated in his office where the mirror is located. Is the strange behavior caused by mental health issues or the influence of the mirror? This a motif director Mike Flanagan uses in his other films as well. It's an interesting look at hauntings. One person's ghost is another person's mental disease.
This movie has some great scares from Kaylie seeing things in the mirror at the auction house to biting into an apple. It's always asking us to question what we see. What is real vs what is an irrational fear.
Overall this movie is about family. A mother that becomes violent towards her family as her mind unravels and a father that is incapable/unwilling of protecting his children from harm. How a broken and violent home traumatizes these siblings. And how that trauma haunts them even as adults. The promises we make to family aren't always good for us.
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