Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the scariest film of all? In 2008, Alexandre Aja, released his reflective horror Mirrors. This was 11 years before his 2019 film Crawl produced our highest heart rates of the year. Find out if the first movie of our catoptrophobia competition was able to reflect the heart pounding numbers of his latest release.

SYNOPSIS:

An ex-cop and his family are the target of an evil force that is using mirrors as a gateway into their home.

Test Subject: Debby

Age: 34

Gender:  Female

Fears: Strangers / Public Speaking

Resting HR: 62-65bpm

Walking HR: 80-85bpm

ANALYSIS:

A gory scene within the first three minutes had our subject cringing and her heart rate rising. After a quick character introduction it was back to a flashlight lighting up eerie scenery and uncovering a menacing mystery. Strange images reflected across walls of mirrors began to create an uneasiness in our subject. These unexpected visions began to build anxiety and escalate her pulse. In fact, it was a heated hallucination that brought on our subject’s peak heart rate of 92bpm. Several more extremely high peaks occurred as the film progressed, creating stressful scenes one after the other. One of our favorite moments to monitor occurred at 46:00 when a jaw dropping scene left our subject (and one of the actors) speechless. This intense moment caused her heart rate to jump 15bpm in a matter of seconds. Several more peaks above 80bpm carried our subject through a reflection filled finale that didn’t let up until the credits rolled.

CONCLUSION:

Mirrors (2008) was a dark and depressing film filled with pulse pounding moments and insane gore. Even though the story and characters lacked depth, the spooky atmosphere and gruesome scenes were enough to raise our subject’s heart rate to impressive levels and burn off 244 calories. The film did not match the extremely high numbers we recorded from Crawl but consistent spikes helped the overall average climb into a top twenty spot on our leaderboard, landing between the Black Christmas remake from 2006 and Hell Fest in 2018.

How many Fear Calories did you burn watching Mirrors? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook