Through the Looking Glass 4K 1976

Story Movie

Wealthy socialite Catherine is obsessed with the memory of her late father and at night returns to an old mirror from her childhood. The mirror opens a portal to a twisted world where her repressed incest trauma comes to life and sexual visions become a real hell that threatens to destroy her and her family.

Review 4K Movie

Through the Looking Glass is a rare example of a 70s adult film that works as a full-blown psychological horror. The director builds a slow, visceral immersion into the trauma: eroticism is not here for titillation, but as a tool of pressure, shame and self-destruction for the heroine.

Katharine Ehrhardt's acting is unexpectedly convincing: her Kathryn is simultaneously cold, detached and internally broken, which makes the final descent into the looking glass logical rather than merely shocking. Visually, the movie uses cheap but expressive techniques - dark interiors, strange angles, slow motion, creating the feeling of a psychedelic dream, where the viewer is uncomfortable, but it is difficult to break away.

The weaknesses are the drawn-out nature of some scenes and explicit content that may repulse even the seasoned auteur movie viewer. But as an attempt to combine X-rated material with a serious conversation about the cycle of abuse and abuser addiction, the movie looks surprisingly ambitious and still stands out from the typical adult cinema of the time.