Provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Dan chastises Maria's lack of social life and is generally emotionally neglectful and abusive. He prioritizes appearance and status to such an extreme that he suggests specific plastic surgery for his daughter, and even decided to let one of his babies die when she was born ill and deformed.
- Asshole Victim:
- Mark is a bully to Maria, then gets hit in the knee with a hockey stick by her darker alternate self Airam when it appears he meant to rape her. He is the very least sympathetic of Airam's victims.
- Dan is debatably just as bad if not worse than Mark. He’s an emotionally abusive husband and father who cares more about status and appearances than his family’s wellbeing. His poor wife is a broken shell of a woman at this point, and Maria is no different than her mother, thanks to Dan constantly pointing out her flaws in a cold and brutal fashion and telling her she should get plastic surgery. But what really cements him as a 👁 This example contains a YMMV entry. It should be moved to the YMMV tab.
Complete Monster is the reveal that he euthanized his infant daughter at birth because his perfectionism simply wouldn’t allow a child with a deformity. Oh, and he cheats on his wife. You won’t find a single soul in the audience rooting for this guy when Airam kills him. - Played with Lily. Though she’s definitely not a good friend whatsoever, it’s hard to say if she really deserved to lose her life over it (though Airam technically didn’t murder her).
- Attempted Rape: Implied. After Airam embarrasses him in front of his friends at school, Mark later threatens her during hockey practice and waits for the rest of his teammates to leave before he sneaks into the girl's locker room while he thinks "Maria" is in the shower. Luckily, Airam is waiting for him in the corner, dislocates his knee with a hockey stick, and then effortlessly intimidates him into silence.
- Bathtub Scene: Maria is taking a bath and shown topless early in the film when she sees her reflection moving by itself again, freaking her out.
- Bed Trick: Airam seduces Sean, who believes she's Maria, and he becomes her boyfriend. Given this, it's even creepier when they have sex, as it's rape by fraud on her part, unknowingly to him.
- Bully Brutality: Mark forcefully pulls Maria's arm and drags her face down on the ice for several feet.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Lily knows Maria has a crush on Sean, and threatens her to stay away from him. When she sees Sean helping Maria skate at prom, she "accidentally" knocks her over and doesn’t help her.
- Crocodile Tears: Airam puts on a sad expression and fakes sounding distraught over Lily having died, while she killed her.
- Defiant Strip: Maria/Airam does one in front of her father in the final act just before she kills him.
- Dirty Coward: Being a bully, Mark absolutely folds when he meets her father and when Airam turns the tables on him twice.
- Downer Ending: Maria/Airam ends up killing her father after he reveals that he wouldn't love her if she was deformed like her twin; and whom he killed because she was deformed. While she gets rid of the murder weapon, makes it home, and reconciles with her mother, Sean and Lily are still dead, and the lead police investigator has all but told her that he knows she's responsible and is coming after her.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Maria has dark brown hair and pale skin. She looks emaciated and even waxy a lot as Maria doesn't eat much. Her reflection Airam is worse, being violent and obsessive, but both look more than a bit creepy because of their looks.
- Fan Disservice: Maria/Airam ends up naked more than once. But, considering that she's an abused teenager suffering a mental crisis, it's Played for Horror. Especially in the climax when she confronts her (abusive) father and strips completely naked in front of him before killing him.
- He Knows Too Much: When Sean starts to piece together that Maria, really Airam, has something to do with Lily’s death, Airam murders him by bashing his head in with a lamp.
- Incest Subtext: Loads of it:
- Airam first appears to Maria whilst the latter is masturbating, acts as a Knight Templar Big Sister Yandere toward her throughout the film, and the two switch places by kissing.
- Airam strips naked in front of her father, pleading with him to tell her she’s beautiful and that he’d love her even if she weren’t, and both Airam and Maria have an underlying desire for their father’s affection.
- Innocently Insensitive: Maria talks with Naomi, her dad's secretary, who says obliviously that high school is a great time in her life, unaware Maria's bullied there constantly. Maria just smiles weakly and says nothing.
- Karma Houdini: Second only to her father, Mark is by far the worst of all three of Airam's victims. But while they're murdered, Mark merely gets bashed in the knee with a hockey stick.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After spending the entire movie being not only an Abusive Parent to Maria and an Abusive Husband to his wife, cheating on said wife, and killing Maria's twin simply because she was deformed, Dr. Dan Brennan ends up on the receiving end of some well-earned retribution. Starting with his exposure of having an affair, it ends with Maria/Airam confronting him at his office and slitting his throat.
- Lingerie Scene: Airam takes off her shirt and acts seductively toward Sean in her bra when the two have gone into a motel room together for sex. When they argue, she then kills him and cries into the mirror while dressed this way too.
- Love Triangle: Maria secretly wants Sean, her friend Lily's boyfriend. Lily's aware of this, and treats her badly as a result, especially after he seems to like her back.
- Loving Bully: Airam recognizes Mark, Maria's bully, as also being into her, and once she takes Maria's place, she publicly taunts him about it when he tries to harass "Maria" after the prom.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Airam seduces Sean, and he has sex with her on the floor.
- Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration: Maria masturbates in the bathroom early on, and it's during it that she first sees her reflection moving by itself, which scares her deeply. She is a Shrinking Violet and too shy for actual sex, so it's probable she vents sexual desire this way.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It’s never explicit if Airam really exists as Maria's dead twin or if Maria has some sort of dissociative disorder.
- Meaningful Name: The name Airam is Maria spelled backwards.
- Oh, Crap!: Lily has one when Airam falls onto the ice one last time and the latter gives her a Death Glare when she doesn't say or do anything to help her again. This then leads to Airam chasing Lily on the ice until Lily panics, loses her footing, falls, and slides head-first into a concrete lip, killing her within seconds.
- Only Friend: Lily is Maria's only friend, but she's also a terrible friend. Airam recognizes Lily's behavior for what it is and literally chases her to her death.
- Psycho Lesbian: One interpretation of Airam's actions is that she is incestuously obsessed with Maria.
- Sdrawkcab Name: Maria's reflection/other self Airam has this; her name is Maria spelled backward.
- Sexless Marriage: Maria's parents no longer have sex, nor even kiss. Her dad is now having affairs with other women. Airam, aware of this, mocks Maria's mom over the state of their marriage.
- Shrinking Violet: Maria is a very quiet, shy girl who is constantly bullied at school. Early on, she says she's not going to her prom, viewing it as just another opportunity for her being bullied (though it's apparent nobody's asked her there either). She only has one friend (who isn't truly one to her), while she's not at all outgoing. This makes Airam's offer to hit back at bullies in a way that Maria can't all the more tempting. Airam is the opposite from her, being bold and aggressive to the point of brutal violence.
- Slashed Throat: Airam kills Maria's dad by cutting his throat using a nearby scalpel.
- Split Personality: It's possible Airam is wholly a product of Maria's mind or her dead identical twin sister's ghost come alive somehow, living in the mirror, but it isn't really clear. However, to other people Airam's replacing her must come off this way at least, as for all that they know she's Maria.
- Stepford Smiler: Amy wants to keep her daughter uplifted, but she's helplessly dominated by Dan.
- Yank the Dog's Chain:
- After hearing Mark and his friends snicker about Maria at the movies, Dan seems to feel bad for his daughter, and tells her to come to his office the next day for a birthday surprise. While Airam is suspicious about his intentions, Maria is excited and believes he’s going to buy her a car. Airam's suspicions turn out to be correct, as instead of a car, Dan offers to pay for plastic surgery to fix Maria's so-called "imperfections," devastating Maria and infuriating Airam.
- At the prom, when Maria falls on the ice and isn't helped up by Lily (who also prevents Sean from helping her), Mark doesn't laugh like the rest of the school and instead offers her a hand, which she reluctantly takes. Instead of pulling her up, though, Mark cruelly drags her across the ice, resulting in several scraps on her skin and tearing her dress.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After Airam apparently dislocates Mark’s knee with a hockey stick, he isn’t seen or mentioned again.
