Young French director loves horror films

RON DICKE; Special to The Hartford Courant When horror spoofs itself – sacré bleu! – French director Alexandre Aja gets mad. “I think what will kill the genre again will be what killed the genre in the ’90s, which was the ‘Scream’ kind of movies,” he says. Aja is doing his best to see that it doesn’t happen. He makes seriously gory stuff. This time, he has turned his gaze from the cannibal mutants of his 2006 hit “The Hills Have Eyes” to malevolent looking-glasses in “Mirrors,” which opens today. Kiefer Sutherland plays a department-store security guard whose reflection turns evil in a chain of events that Windex can’t wipe away. One scene anticipated in fan-geek circles is as advertised: Amy Smart, as the sister, stares into the bathroom mirror and rips her mouth open until her jaw plops into the bathtub. Aja’s joy in... [read full story]