To escape her insistent friend Liz, the beautiful and seemingly well-off Pandora (Veronica Hart, a genre legend who needs no introduction) rushes into an antique shop where she stumbles upon a magnificent standing mirror, which immediately captures her interest. Although the elderly shop owner tells her the mirror is "worthless" and isn't even for sale, Pandora feels compelled to return and look in the mirror again and again as it magically reveals the story of her past through various clips from different eras. Initially, it was a gift from an important nobleman to his neglected young wife, and he himself made it from a frame carved from an oak tree struck by lightning.
Shaun Costello’s best film of the era also stands as the best adult thriller ever made, achieving sustained intrigue from the opening frames through deliberate pacing, exceptionally beautiful cinematography, and Costello’s already well-known record collection (Bernard Herrmann’s “Vertigo”; a pair of Mike Oldfield tunes, as well as Pino Donaggio selections [De Palma’s “Carrie”; and the traditional “Woman of Ireland” made famous by Stanley Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon,” “plundered” for this film). This unsettling adult film remains one of the finest to emerge from the genre’s Golden Age. Costello has taken the utmost care with every aspect of the production, and film scholars should pay close attention to the exquisite compositions and unusual sophistication.