I hate it when authors use reflecti0ns as a way to describe how their characters look. It always feels lazy and flat. But, for some reason, the horror cliche of having an image suddenly appear in a mirror never seems to lose its shock value. Just take a look at this:
Thanks to Alex Epstein for the link.
They left out maybe the creepiest, DRESSED TO KILL. But those were all pretty good.
I wonder how many of these scenes use actual mirrors, and how many use split screens, double exposures, mattes, etc.
Don’t dismiss the power of the reflection. On my mother’s 60th birthday, I flew across the country and popped into the ol’ homestead to surpise her. During a gathering I meant to step out from a room and say “Happy Birtday mom, I love you!” But instead, before I could, she prematurely caught my reflection in a mirror, assumed I was a prophetic apparition of my own death, and she collapsed. Naturally I was horrified, and momentarily thought that I had caused the end of her. She’s now 77. Whew.
With Ted Raimi. I can never remember that guy’s first name and when looking at his IMDB resume I found out that he was in SeaQuest DSV.