Shutter

This was a surprisingly good, old fashioned ghost story.

I haven't seen the original and I'm not a fanboy, so I didn't have any axes to grind going in. The cast is very good if somewhat underutilized, the photography and musical scoring are excellent, and there's a plot twist that caught me completely by surprise.

Watching the previews you'd think this was the one millionth Asian horror with a vengeful female spirit who has long black hair and dark circles under her eyes. There's more than that going on here.

And, without giving any plot points away, the final shot of the film is going to stay with me for a long, long time.

Sure, this isn't the most original piece of work ever. It's part of a long tradition of ghost stories. But the makers had the sense to keep it to 85 minutes so it's over before you really begin to think how familiar some of the material is.