Kiefer
Sutherland stars as an NYPD detective-turned-security guard who
discovers something sinister lurking in the mirrors of a fire-damaged
department store in Haute Tension writer/director Alexandre Aja's
menacing study in the origins of evil. It's been just about a year
since mercurial police detective Ben Carson (Sutherland) was suspended
from the NYPD for the fatal shooting of an undercover officer, and ever
since that fateful day he's been locked in a self-destructive spiral of
anger and alcoholism. Increasingly isolated from his wife and kids, Ben
spends most nights crashed-out at his sister Angela's (Amy Smart)
apartment in Queens.
But Ben hasn't given up hope just yet, and in
order to get his life back together and prove that he's still capable
of supporting his family he takes a job as the night watchman at the
Mayflower department store. The Mayflower used to be a lavish symbol of
inner-city prosperity, that is, until a raging inferno gutted the
building while claiming numerous lives in the process. These days, the
Mayflower is a scorched reminder of human misery, the ornate mirrors
therein reflecting a suffering so profound that it begins to wear on
Ben's already-fragile psyche. Not only that, but whatever force dwells
behind the shimmering glass seems to have gained the power to alter
reality as well.
After Ben gazes into the mirrors and sees a vision of himself being
relentlessly tortured, he is horrified to experience violent
convulsions, spontaneous bleeding, and frightening asphyxiation. And
while his sister is always willing to lend a sympathetic ear, she
chalks the anomalies up to an unusually potent mix of stress and
anxiety. Unfortunately for Ben, his estranged wife, Amy (Paula Patton),
isn't nearly as forgiving. A prosaic NYPD medical examiner who has seen
her fair share of tragedy, Amy fears that Ben's erratic behavior could
be placing their children in danger. Later, as Ben begins to draw
connections between his increasingly gruesome visions and a former
Mayflower security guard who vanished without a trace, he begins to
suspect that an unimaginable evil is using the mirrors as a gateway
into the real world, and that his family is in mortal danger from
forces beyond their realm of understanding.
Perhaps if he Ben can
manage to convince Amy that their children's lives are at risk, he can
summon the courage to face the greatest evil he has ever known.
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