Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

The Mimic Blu-ray Movie Review

Crouching tiger, hidden malevolent demon child.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 11, 2018

Quick: name a film by Guillermo del Toro that only has one word in its title. Even those of you who were able to quickly get past multi word titles like The Shape of Water, Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone, Crimson Peak and Pacific Rim to arrive at a title with a single word may have landed on either Hellboy or Cronos as the answer that most quickly came to mind. But there’s another del Toro film lurking there back in the dim vestiges of memory, one that has kind of become his personal “and the rest” (to quote a certain old television theme song), namely 1997’s Mimic. Mimic was so relegated to the dim vestiges of memory that it took quite some time for it to premiere on Blu-ray, after del Toro had scaled the heights of international fame with several of the other entries listed above. That “better late than never” notoriety surrounding Mimic briefly led me to wonder if The Mimic were some kind of remake, ironically reversing the course that horror reboots have frequently in the past, namely beginning overseas in an Asian country and then making it to the shores of the United States in sometimes grotesquely altered forms. But The Mimic is in fact its own creature (in more ways than one), the brainchild of Huh Jung, the South Korean filmmaker who attracted the notice of horror fans a few years ago with Hide and Seek.

At least somewhat similarly to del Toro’s Mimic, The Mimic also traffics in a kind of otherworldly “beast” that seems to favor dark, secluded places, but it’s at that point that connections are probably severed. This particular Mimic opens with a vignette which seems to suggest it’s going to be focused on a serial killer (or something like that — rather large swaths of this opening sequence are left more or less unexplained). The victim of the killer is bricked up behind a facade covering a cave (in a plot trope eerily reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado). When the murderer has finished entombing the corpse, he (and a woman whose presence is, again, unexplained in the opening) suddenly hear the voice of the victim calling from inside the cave. It may not be out and out “frightening”, but it’s a somewhat disturbing opening, one that just kind of segues into the main story before ultimately circling back (at least in some ways) to this element.

The bricked off cave does in fact recur fairly quickly, as the story moves on to distraught mother Hee-yeon (Yum Jung-ah), who has never gotten over the mysterious disappearance of her little son several years previously. A plot point is ultimately woven into the proceedings involving this disappearance and Hee-yeon’s elderly mother Soon-ja (Heo Jin), who is seemingly in the advanced stages of dementia. And in fact the whole reason the bricked up cave does come back into the story is because Hee-yeon moves back to her childhood home, which is in the vicinity of this shrine like site. Accompanying Hee-yeon are her addle pated mother, her husband Min-ho (Park Hyuk-Kwon) and the couple’s little girl Jun-hee (Jang Liu). Without going into outright spoiler territory, a discovery at that aforementioned bricked up cave results in another discovery, namely a ragged looking little girl (Shin Rin-ah), who (initially at least) seems to be mute, perhaps due to some physical abuse (some disturbing “evidence” crops up). Along the way, a local legend (evidently one at least tangentially related to "real" folklore) is shared about a demonic spirit that is able to imitate voices, thereby luring unsuspecting folks listening to nefarious fates. (In the original legend, the spirit is either or takes the form of a "crouching tiger", hence my joke below the film's title at the top of this review.)

There have been many a so-called “slow burn” horror efforts, but The Mimic is kind of like wet firewood for its first hour or so, with Huh puffing desperately on moist embers trying to get them to spark into something meaningful. And in fact once the film does admittedly get spooky toward its latter half, even then I’d personally question the “meaning” of certain plot elements, since (and this may be my personal deficit) I had next to no idea of what was going on, especially toward the climax. That said, Huh has obviously attempted to craft an eerie ambience that hints at J- (as opposed to K-) horror tropes like the haunted child without “going there” whole hog (so to speak), and he has crafted a technically fascinating film here, one filled with ominous sound effects that ping pong around the surround channels like a ghost with ADHD.

The Mimic Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Mimic is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The closing credits list that the film was digitally captured with Red Cameras (to which I say, "thank you, closing credits", because once again the IMDb has nada, zilch, zip, bupkis on this release). While at least some of The Mimic is either shrouded in outright darkness, or at least dimly lit and often in kind of dreamlike misty environments, detail levels remain nicely high throughout most of this presentation. That said, there's a probably above average amount of brightly lit material here (for a horror film), and the outdoor moments especially pop rather nicely with regard to detail levels, though the entire palette is kind of tamped down throughout the film (Hee-yeon is often seen in beige, for example). There are a couple of brief moments of crush in some very dark scenes, and some flirtations with Well Go USA's seemingly unavoidable bugaboo, banding, but overall this is a sharp and well defined looking transfer.

The Mimic Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Even if you're as generally confused as I kind of was throughout The Mimic, you may have the same visceral reaction to the film's really well done DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (in Korean, with optional English subtitles). From virtually the first moment, there are wispy voices and flutters of wind drifting through the surrounds, and when the first "siren call" of the title spirit emanates from the cave, it has a creepy "distant" quality that is quite evocative (I kind of wish this had an Atmos track for some of the verticality it might have added). Dialogue is also rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the film, but it's the sound effects that will stick with you.

The Mimic Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of includes:

  Director's Commentary (1080p; 1:47). No, this isn't the shortest Director's Commentary on record, it's a very brief EPK bearing a somewhat odd title. Huh does offer some interesting (if, again, brief) comments on the sound design.

  
  

  The Actors (1080i; 2:47) is an only slightly longer EPK devoted to the performers.

• Trailer (1080p; 1:05)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that the above supplements follow one another automatically. After the trailer for this film plays, the disc then moves on automatically to trailers for other Well Go USA releases. Those other trailers also play automatically at disc boot up.

The Mimic Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Mimic has some great moments, but unfortunately for the less patient, most of those accrue toward the end of the film. There are some interesting ideas here, and the central premise of a kind of "evil Rich Little" (you know what I mean) is quite striking, but Huh wastes a lot of energy going down some family dysfunction detours, and he never adequately resolves what function exactly he wants the lost girl to fill. Still, this film's sound design is one of the more memorable I've listened to lately, so for those who like technical aspects like that, this might be an enjoyable enough time killer.