In MIRRORS 2, debuting today on DVD and Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, the people around newly hired department-store security guard Max Matheson (Nick Stahl) get into bloody trouble when they gaze into the titular reflectors. Among the potential victims of a deadly spirit lurking within the looking glasses are store staffer Jenna McCarty (Christy Romano) and Max’s dad Jack (William Katt, pictured left); Fango spoke to both actors about the sequel to Alexandre Aja’s supernatural shocker.

MIRRORS 2 is part of the significant change of pace that Romano (pictured right) has been making lately from her busy previous career (as Christy Carlson Romano) acting and doing voice work for kids’ fare like EVEN STEVENS and KIM POSSIBLE. “I’ve definitely been around the horror genre for a couple of years,” says the actress, who previously appeared in the Syfy flick WOLVESBAYNE opposite Jeremy London, Yancy Butler and Mark Dacascos and next shoots INFECTED with Michael Madsen and William Forsythe. “For some reason, the only movies I like are horror movies. I’ve read FANGORIA for a long time, and I definitely check up on my friends and what their projects are. MIRRORS 2 came about because I knew a lot of people working in Louisiana [where the sequel was shot], and it made sense for me to go down there and do it, and the part was really good for me. I wanted to do something where I wasn’t America’s sweetheart, but at the same time was somewhat intelligent. I didn’t want to just be some dumb girl running upstairs while some sweaty guy with an ax is after her [laughs]. I wanted to be a bad-ass chick who just gets caught off guard.”

Even this more assertive part did not come without that inescapable element of so many young women’s roles in horror flicks: a nude shower scene. If anything about MIRRORS 2 conclusively marks her graduation from kiddie fare, it’s this moment… “That was a first,” Romano says, “and I don’t know how people are going to react to the nudity; I hope they like it. I think I was too skinny at the time, and since then I’ve gained maybe 10 pounds. I was living in LA, and now I’m in New York and they’re fattening me up, which is great! But I think I was filmed beautifully. [The filmmakers] did a great job, and they shot it respectfully. Coming from Disney, I was nervous, and I let some of the people I know there about it and told them I was old enough to do it, and it was time to move on. And I’m happy that it was done with such great artists as [director] Victor Garcia and [cinematographer] Lorenzo Senatore.”

Garcia, who previously helmed another direct-to-disc sequel, RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, and just wrapped HELLRAISER: REVELATIONS, wins further praise from the actress: “Victor is sophisticated, intelligent, handsome, knows his craft and has very good taste in wine,” she smiles. “The movie does a really good job of showcasing its female characters, and Victor captures the essence of women. I’ve seen his other work, and he’s the kind of director who doesn’t dumb down his actresses; he definitely makes them strong. Emmanuelle [Vaugier] is one of those girls, and Stephanie [Honore]. They all fight back.”

According to Katt, MIRRORS 2 offered Garcia a more positive creative experience than HAUNTED HILL. “He was not particularly happy with that film, because there were too many hands in the pot,” the actor says. “But he’s very happy with this film. It’s all him; he had much more creative control. And it’s a studio production, with a fairly decent budget for a direct-to-DVD release. He got to do some pretty cool effects. I’m real happy with it.”

Unlike Romano, Katt has been no stranger to horror thoughout his career, from his early role as the ill-fated boyfriend of CARRIE through his starring role in 1986’s HOUSE to his string of independent fright features in the ’90s and ’00s. He says of his MIRRORS 2 role, “I think I got that because I bore some resemblance to Nick Stahl, who’s a wonderful young talent and has done many great things, and they wanted someone to play his father. So I went down there, and we had three or four great scenes together.” He was also involved in the film’s copious and often bloody FX: “I can’t really talk too much about it, but I did do one of those scenes. It wasn’t too extensive—but there’s some pretty extensive stuff in the film. What I was most impressed with was that the screenplay was so solid; it’s a terrific ghost story.”

Romano also enjoyed the movie, which she first viewed at a Fango-sponsored New York screening (where Fango is conducting this interview) in rather unlikely company, given the nature of her scenes. “My mom was my awesome date of the evening,” she reveals. “She and I were both giggling. I don’t know, we’re gonna have to talk about it afterward! I was like, ‘Mom, I’m so skinny, what do you think?’ She was like, ‘It’s good, but it’s a lot of nakedness! There was more than I thought there’d be,’ and I said, ‘There was more than I thought there’d be too.’ I kept telling her, ‘It’s only going to be about 20 seconds,’ and it’s like, what, two minutes of me being naked? But you know, they used all the good parts [laughs]!”

 

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