Shutter

Unfortunately I didn't manage to catch the 2004 Thai original before this American remake premiered at the annual Belgian Horror and Fantasy Festival. I didn't bother to see it when it initially got released because there already was an overload of Asian Ghost movies at that time and I really couldn't cope enduring another dull and scare-free imitation of "Ringu". After seeing the US remake I'm definitely interested in checking out the original sooner or later. The basic idea of restless spirits trying to communicate through photography is remotely original, but the elaboration (at least in this remake) remains somewhat tedious and predictable. Immediately after their marriage, Jane follows her photographer husband Ben to Tokyo where his friends arranged a splendid job for him. Jane, but soon after also Ben, suffers from visions of a deceased girl and all the pictures they make are ruined by ghostly images of this same girl. There's more than obviously a link between this girl and Ben's past days as a bachelor, but Jane only gradually learns the truth of what happened exactly. To my knowledge, this is the first and so far only Thai film to be remade by a Japanese director but with American funds and cast members. Talk about an international co-production! Masayuki Ochiai previously directed the incredibly atmospheric and uncanny hospital-horror film "Infection", so he definitely knows how to build up suspense and terror through suggestion. The main problem here is that the ghostly subject matter is too "soft" and doesn't lend itself to provide some genuine shock-moments. We've all seen too many (Asian) horror movies already in which white-faced spirits spontaneously appear & disappear again, and the mystery is always build up towards a point where the script can't possibly fulfill the audience's anticipations anymore. In "Shutter", you rather quickly figure out that Ben knows than he tells, so you can easily guess each and every plot twist far in advance. There are a very limited number of sets and exterior locations. Why didn't the film take advantage of the wondrous city of Tokyo, like for example "Lost in Translation" did? Rachael Taylor is certainly a promising actress with a lot of growing potential, so I hope she'll get offered a couple of better screenplays in the near future. Thus far, she only has horror rubbish like "See No Evil" and "Man-Thing" on her repertoire and those things won't get her noticed. Neither will "Shutter", for that matter.

The trailers for this movie made it look pretty good, but it turned out to be not the best movie. It delivers the scares, but there are too many 'false alarms'. A lot of the love stuff in the beginning could've been left out. The real horror starts a little too late, and basically is pretty corny. Most of the acting is pretty bad, and some of the dialogue seems to be totally improvised. This is one Japanese horror remake that shouldn't have been made at all in my opinion. It has a pretty bad plot that takes a long time to unfold and, at times, is rather boring. Warning - do not be fooled, for this is one movie that blows! If you want to see a movie, just avoid this, and see something else instead. Trust me.

Take it as it is. A derivative, leaden, mind-numbingly simplified remake of a superior original. That's not to say that it's genuinely decent on its own merits if you've not already seen 2004's seminal Thai-horror "Shutter" that reignited that country's interest in producing slow burning, luxuriously made horror films. Interestingly, and perhaps even fittingly, the Hollywood machine that devours and regurgitates the recent slate of J-Horror films has turned its sights on "Shutter", which arguably finds its core roots in Japan's horror conventions in its vengeful, waifish ghost girl tormenting the living by manifesting through various electronic mediums. So what Masayuki Ochiai's adaptation essentially becomes is a carbon copy of copy.

American photographer Ben Shaw (Joshua Jackson) and his blonde schoolteacher bride Jane (Rachael Taylor) go straight from nuptials to a working honeymoon in Japan, natch, because America just isn't as scary to Americans as Asia is. Before heading off to Ben's lucrative assignment in Tokyo, the newly minted couple heads to a remote countryside inn when a brief accident derails Jane's constitution and compels her to seek out answers led by a phantasmal presence in photographs and a newly discovered knowledge of spirit photography.

Unremarkably, Luke Dawson's screenplay omits and appends details to its basic premise. The original uses the stark disassociation of city living to intensify the eeriness of isolation, and the idea that we never really see what we think we know. Dawson's script transplants the couple to a different country, ramping up the cultural alienation and exoticism of another culture. It's not dissimilar to what we've already seen in "The Grudge" remakes.

Even as Ochiai's direction is comparatively surefooted and patient with the camera choosing to hang on to a scene instead of ludicrously harping on jump-cuts and eyeball-rattling shots that bounce off the wall, the film feels unambitiously stale. "Shutter" goes through the motions of dourly checking off look-behind-you set pieces and reflections on windows. The plotting and performances are so apparent; you'd find yourself a couple of steps ahead of the film's central faux-mystery. While the bizarre symbiotic relationship audiences have with particularly mediocre remakes of Asian horror films should still live on after this, what remains most terrifying is how textbook simple and undemanding the film-making has become for films of its ilk.

My family was watching this in the living room but I didn't. I heard some of my cousins screaming and they said it was scary and suspenseful. The next day I saw it, and I think my cousins are wimps and have a nerve problem. I never got scared and I almost slept through the movie. I am a fan of PG-13 horror movies, and I get scared on most of them, but this one failed. The story was a simple, but it was somewhat good. But in the end, the story just barely had a purpose. I have not yet seen the original movie from Thailand, but what my instinct say is that it could be better. Hopefully not like Pulse. Americans should stop trying to make remakes and try to make good original horror flicks that could be good in order for other countries to want to make remakes of American movies.

4/10

After seeing this movie, I was shocked by the comments. The movie wasn't that bad at all.

In the beginning I wasn't sure what to think. It was rather scary, and the plot itself made my question whether I saw this movie or not already. It reminded me of similar movies like the grudge.

But let's face it, the end was surprising and not in any way predictable.

I like the movie. I'll see it again someday.

I gave it a six because it was very entertaining, surprising, but it wont go into history as a masterpiece.

See this movie if you want to enjoy yourself, be scared, be excited and you wont regret it.