Shutter (I) (2008) User Reviews

It wasn't that bad

[b014422 · 6/10 · 17 July 2008]

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.

Shutter takes Polaroid remnants of the original without the stunning flash.

[TheMovieDiorama · 4/10 · 15 November 2019]

This is a peculiar remake. During the towering heights of Hollywood westernising world-renowned Asian horrors, mostly from Japan and South Korea, Japanese director Ochiai opted to alter the story of Thailand's arguably most famous eponymous horror with American actors, set in Japan. Western audiences apparently wouldn't be spooked if the ghost haunting the main characters wasn't a pasty white Japanese girl with luscious black hair and masses amount of eye liner. It's a cluster of cultures, and whilst the end result isn't exactly terrible, it's far from being tolerably good. Because much like 'The Grudge', 'One Missed Call' and 'Pulse', the underlying sense of pointlessness becomes an overburden for everyone involved.

A photographer and his new bride travel to Tokyo where they accidentally smash into a girl standing in the middle of the darkened misty road (bare foot, might I add!). And so, through the ominous power of spirit photography, they become haunted. Specks of mysterious white vapours and the glistening sunlight against the camera lenses, being interpreted as ghostly entities attempting to communicate with the living. "The dead latch onto the flesh".

Without changing the essence of the overall story too much, just minor details here and there, Ochiai manages to produce various suspenseful moments through the usage of anonymity. The ethereal cries of a haunting girl, the innocent humming of an eerie song and the most intense tonguing since Toad got struck by lightning back in '00. The supernatural elements work best when nothing is showed on screen. The dark room sequence when Megumi entered the room, although initially presumed to be Jane, was executed with enough slow-paced tension to become effective. Dropping a splinter of wood into a solution that causes a tsunami into the eyes? Ineffective. Electrocuting one's self in a desperate attempt to rid the latched ghost? Well, I don't need to tell you how stupid that is.

Dawson's script is less than impressive. Masses amount of exposition and one-dimensional development that forced characters to be nothing more than tourists and amateur photographers. Seriously, Jane is the worst tourist. Shouting in the faces of locals exclaiming "excuse me, where do I go!?". Is she oblivious to native languages? Like, she failed to even attempt one word in Japanese. That's not Taylor's fault, who isn't the most talented actress in existence, but managed to bring out some surprising emotionality towards the film's conclusion. Jackson on the other hand? Ehhh. He's the kind of guy you want to slap for acquiring no personality. Just bland. His character's best friends are pointless and sadly resorted to expendable deaths that suffered from no build-up.

The central mystery that powers the narrative does captivate, even if Ochiai's direction made certain twists obvious due to extensive foreshadowing, and that's the primary element for preventing this remake from venturing into the realms that we do not speak of. I'm looking at you 'One Missed Call' and 'Pulse'!

So yes, Shutter is fine. As a film, it functions by itself with enough flash for the uninitiated. However, for those who have watched the original, you're bound to find disfigurement within the composition of this photographic remake.

Tame, lame, and not very scary.

[adamscastlevania2 · 2/10 · 2 October 2014]

(13%) A largely subtitle free remake of an Asian horror movie made almost entirely for those too lazy to read. The original was a Thai movie, but for some reason this is set in Japan, but really that's the least of its problems. Storywise this is a decent idea and I'm guessing the original perhaps worked out better, but this is largely overly tame, and for a movie not even 90 mins long it feels very plodding at times, and rather directionless. The two leads are dull characters played by dull performances, and there's a cheap TV movie feel, not to mention some very cheap jump scares and seen it all before "spooky" ghost women. Give this a miss and watch something else.

Poor remake

[sandujohnny · 1/10 · 29 January 2009]

This is a remake of a good Thai horror movie that was released back in 2004. I really enjoyed the original movie and I recommend it to everyone. Why did they need to do a remake of a movie that was released only 4 years ago? Did they think they can improve it in some way? Not only did they not improve it, they made it worse than the original in many ways. The brilliant music and sounds from the original are gone, the ghost is less scary, is shown more often, and it seems less menacing (at one step the ghost is even singing!), the acting is worse, and the characters are less believable than in the original.

The producers introduced a few new elements hoping to make the movie more scary, but in fact they made it more disgusting (the flies for example). The original movie was full of clichés, but this one is even more so. The most brilliant part of the original movie was the ending. In the remake, they simply copied every scene from the last part of the movie, but with less talent and less impressive results.

So, I return to my original question: why did they need to do a remake? What was the problem with the original movie released only 4 years before this one? The fact that the main actors were Asians and that they didn't speak English? Or more likely, the fact that Hollywood, which is apparently all out of ideas, couldn't let a good story fly by them without them making money out of it?

Very scary for only being PG-13

[robertallenandersonjr · 7/10 · 9 April 2008]

Shutter was a pretty decent movie. The movie was pretty predictable. People will probably not like this movie because of the ending. The thing that people need to realize is that when they are going to see a movie like this you know what you are going to get out of it. I hate it when people keep cutting down movies like this, such as One Missed Call and The Eye. In these kind of movies the ending is pretty predictable, its pretty much going to leave you hanging. Thats why I think people need to understand you can't hate a movie because of the ending. I thought that their was so much more to the story than just spirit photography. It explains why its happening to the people that are on their honey moon. It seems like in these kind of movies the story explains a lot more near the end. They kept doing many flash backs in this movie as well. That's when they were explaining the story a lot. This was actually pretty creepy, freightning, and scary all at the same time. It had a ton of sudden pop out right at your face scenes. Im sure that when you see this you will jump many times. I thought that it could have been a little bit better. I liked the idea of having it be two newly married couples that this spirit photography is happening to. I liked how the wife was fighting the ghosts the whole movie. The acting was surprisingly really good I thought. The wife in this played by Rachael Taylor did such a great job playing all the scared parts and emotional parts. Her husband played by Joshua Jackson did a great job as well. Some of the visuals were pretty sweet. They had a lot of nice camera shots of the whole city in Tokyo. After some of the people left the theater I heard them say I want my money back. This movie was trying to prove to you that making fun of people and treating them like crap at a younger age will come back to haunt you. Overall this was a decent movie with some good scares. I would go see this at the cheap show or only pay five dollars.

Not the best

[wolf_stoned · 6/10 · 22 March 2008]

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.

Another unrelentingly boring ghost-in-the-machine remake

[movedout · 3/10 · 28 March 2008]

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.

Way, Way Better than I Expected

[bababear · 8/10 · 22 March 2008]

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.

PERFECT! for our image of American youth...

[peelscreen · 1/10 · 22 March 2008]

I think this movie shows exactly how Hollywood sees America's youth. Compelled by fashionably dressed model women, sometimes half naked, bright colors, spooky images and scenes that are only there to make you jump. Oh... and I forgot, no brains. They think you're all idiots so they give you this cliché garbage.

Skinny attractive woman who couldn't act if it were cursed on her, walks around always looking fresh and dumb in designer clothes. This movie is about as intelligent as a log. Everything seems forced and none of it is original or done in a compelling way. I have to wonder if English was the native language of the director since most of the dialog is unacceptably terrible. Many times I cringed or laughed at things that I knew weren't meant to have that kind of reaction.

Poorly paced, poorly written, poorly acted, the effects are okay. I haven't seen the original, but conceptually, this movie could have been great if it were done the right way. Unfortunately, it was not. F-

Why was this movie even made?

[cynkittie · 6/10 · 23 March 2008]

Shutter seemed like a promising horror flick. I saw The Grudge (American) when it came out and thought it had something to offer my kind of crowd, the college moviegoer. I was expecting for this film to have the same effect. Unfortunately, I think that the best thing about this movie was the trailer, and after finding out that this was a remake, I have to ask why was this movie even made? Was it only made because we can't read (subtitles) and watch at the same time?

Without seeing the original, I can only guess that it is better. The Shutter remake had all the potential to be a great scary movie. It had the creepy music, lighting, and ghosts. It also had a very interesting theme of incorporating a vengeful spirit into photographs that definitely worked better than the whole "noise" concept of the movie White Noise. (Shutter remake is definitely better than White Noise.) However, the concept was not original to this film, and therefore, they really didn't need to remake a movie so soon after the original (if at all). The effects in this movie were probably a little bit more enhanced, but it's nothing I haven't seen before. They definitely weren't on the level of The Grudge (maybe budget constraints?)

I don't think the actors and actresses stood out at all in this movie. You'll think Rachel Taylor is beautiful and Joshua Jackson plays his part well, but they're just blah. Their chemistry is blah. Their performances are blah. You could replace them with another actor and actress, and it wouldn't make a difference.

I just felt like they could have done a lot more. It didn't scare me nearly as much as I would have liked it too. It was enjoyable to a point, but my friend and I both had to ask, was that it? I thought the ending was a bit contrived, maybe because I already gathered everything I needed to know from the trailer so the "twist" was just as predictable as everything else. They needed to do a lot more with Joshua Jackson's character in my opinion to put this movie over the edge, and they failed to do that.

So basically, this film will scare the younger crowd. In fact I think that's why it's PG-13 rated to get kids in the theater and make a buck. It's not going to do anything for anyone who is wanting something more than The Grudge. It'll creep you out a little but its style and concept is predictable and nothing new.

Overall, 6/10 for me for its average horror movie appeal.

Worse than anything Uwe Boll ever made...

[lcri-1 · 1/10 · 27 April 2008]

Going into the theater to see this film, I had never seen the original. I was looking forward to this film after seeing the above-average remake of The Eye, but this was just terrible. I kept waiting for the movie to get to the scary part, or at least the INTERESTING part. It never did.

The ghost in this film is the least threatening movie ghost since Casper, I swear. Apparently she kills some people, but we're not ever shown what her involvement in the deaths is. She doesn't even look or act scary. She's just... there.

This movie also falls into the same pitfall of confusing gross with scary that the One Missed Call remake did and gives us lots of bugs and other creepy-crawlies rendered in mediocre CGI.

However, unlike One Missed Call, there isn't a single piece of genuinely chilling imagery here to save the film. We are shown a few things that are supposed to be creepy, but they're just gross or boring.

And the story is completely uninteresting. There is no sense of foreboding because the story never hints that the ghost is going to do something violent or scary. Maybe this was intended to make it scarier when she did, but that doesn't matter because it isn't at all scary in the first place.

I won't reveal the final twist, but be warned... it's only unpredictable because it's so freaking stupid and not scary that you can't believe they put it in the movie.

Overall, I can honestly say that this is the worst movie I've ever seen.

Surprising well-made

[sq8188-162-458059 · 6/10 · 1 October 2011]

Good story and surprisingly well-made. Suspense built slowly and seemed in hand of competent director and actors. Film was in 3 takes. The introduction, the main play, and surprisingly the post episode was genuinely frightful. There was a moral ending instead of senseless chop-em-up flicks. The cast was perfect. Rachel Taylor was a good actress and very believable as the young wife of photographer Ben. The Japan outdoor scenery were breath-taking. Only complaint - the Japanese women were shown and treated as objects; and the women seemed amendable to playing that role. Maybe that's reflecting the cultural norm in Japan. Otherwise a good movie night if you want enough scares.

Another J-Horror remake? Truthfully? It's lacking "shudders"

[Red_Flag · 1/10 · 21 June 2008]

There's a certain fashionable trait when it comes to J-Horror remakes. Bumps in the night, disturbing images and the most famous of all that same scary Japanese girl with the black hair covering her face. So it's no surprise that this latest revamp of the Korean chiller looks exactly the same ass all the ones that have been before. Only worse. Lacks the jump out of the seat horror of The Grudge, without the stunning atmosphere of the ring. No shutter takes its place in front of the Disaster of a film "One Missed Call" so bad you'd rather that very girl was haunting you simply to end the nightmare that is "Shutter" And yet with such a shimmering premise and an original that is remarkable at creating up scares it's a mystery why this did do too well. With One missed Call it was all out in the open. What with the Japanese original being far from brilliant. But here we have a brilliant premise, a decent cast and room for improvement. And yet it still managed to flop. Congratulation Hollywood you've done it again.

For photographer Ben and his new wife Jane, his new assignment--a lucrative fashion shoot in Tokyo--was supposed to be a kind of working honeymoon. With this exotic professional opportunity and the limitless possibilities of a new marriage, Ben and Jane arrive in Japan.

But as they make their way on a mountain road leading to Mt. Fuji, their new life together comes to, literally, a crashing halt. Their car smashes into a woman standing in the middle of the road, who has materialized out of nowhere. Upon regaining consciousness after the accident, Ben and Jane cannot find any trace of the girl Jane believes she hit with the car. Shaken by the accident and by the girl's disappearance, Ben and Jane arrive in Tokyo, where Ben begins his glamorous assignment. Having worked in Japan before and fluent in the language, Ben is comfortable there, and he eagerly reunites with old friends and colleagues.

Jane, a newcomer to the city, feels very much like a stranger in a strange land as she makes tentative, unsettling forays through the city. Ben, meanwhile, has discovered mysterious white blurs--eerily evocative of a human form--that have materialized on an entire day's work from the expensive photo shoot. Jane's concerns escalate as she believes the blurs in Ben's photos are the dead girl from the road, who is now seeking vengeance for them leaving her to die.

In all its merely an uninspired, freightless mess that nether inspires, incites of scares ultimately. Its half baked cliqued trash that deserves the be discarded as soon as possible.

My final verdict? Avoid at all costs. Nobody will enjoy this and on the list of bad J-Horror this ranks second last behind the dreadful One Missed Call. The movies never seemed to have one full complete plot that lasted from the start to the end. Everything happened so fast, and was insanely unrealistic. It wasn't entertaining, scary, or interesting. "A classic dud."

great remake

[killercharm · 6/10 · 11 August 2022]

In this American remake of the 2004 Thai movie a newly married couple move to Japan for the husband's career in photography. They accidentally hit a ped; when they come to in their smashed car they cannot find the girl they hit. Later they start to find her in their photographs. This is a movie that holds you to the screen, something the original did not.

This movie was terrible

[cToTh-2 · 1/10 · 28 July 2008]

Usually I'm pretty easy-going about horror movies; I can usually watch movies for their entertainment value, despite some of the lower remarks of some people. But this ain't one of them. This movie was boring. I mistakingly bought it partly because the DVD commercial looked interesting and partly because I thought the average IMDb.com rating was 6.4/10, not 4.8/10 (as it stands today). Nowadays, I usually try to avoid movies with a rating less than 6/10 (in most cases).

In any case, this movie was boring and not even remotely scary. There were a few interesting scenes, but most of them were near the end/climax of the movie. Even the dialogue/relationship between Jane and Ben were laughable, though I cannot remember how at the moment. I'm beginning to wonder if I am beginning to block this movie from my memory (but not enough for me to watch it a 2nd time).

To help give you an idea of how bad this was, I liked White Noise and Boogeyman (2005) better than this flick.

Drama The Ring like movie

[ed060606 · 7/10 · 10 March 2011]

I was really surprised by this movie because it seemed like the movie would be another Ring type movie because a paranormal spirit would attack the main characters, but it was not. Ben, a photographer, comes to Tokyo Japan for a new life with his wife and the past to brought back when a ghostly presence follow him around. The movie then explains why ghost seem to follow around people who are alive. I love Rachel Taylor in this movie because the ghost is mainly trying to tell her something.She finally finds out what it is and results change the movie. A lot of twist and turns in this movie but the ending is pretty surprising.

Enjoy!

Yawn!!!

[mr-roboto-1 · 1/10 · 30 March 2008]

This has to be the worst movie I have seen in a while. This movie is a poor "Grudge" wannabe. It also seemed like the actors were performing in a Canadian high school play. I usually get scared easily and so does my wife, but she fell asleep in the theater while I kept getting more upset that I paid for two ticket when I might have had a better time listening to my mother-in-law talk about how I could better myself. If I had to sum it up, I could say this was a Chick-Flick Horror, but my chick wife didn't even like it. I think that if would have been nice to make it into a TV movie instead like they do with the poor Steven King movies. At least that way I could turn it off without worrying about getting my money's worth. Who do I talk to, about getting my movie ticket money back!

Shutter your eyes....and go to sleep

[C-Ant · 1/10 · 6 June 2008]

In a nutshell - awful.

It appears Hollywood threw all the 'big guns' at this movie - the sexy blond (can't even remember her name!), the teenage girls favourite actor - Joshua whats his face from that crap kids drama, and some decent special effects - and came up with urm...nothing! All in all, she looked great, the bloke looked handsome and effects were good. Problem is, the film sucked harder then a vampire on a vegan trying to find the meaty bit! No scares, no jumps, no gripping intrigue or suspense.

There is a twist at the end, but it's 'too little too late', by this point i was only watching because i hadn't managed to find a rusty fork to stick in my eyeballs.

Don't waste your time on this film, juggling 'rio snappers' would be more frightening.

SOOO Bad! Foreign version 100 times better!

[constantine187 · 1/10 · 2 June 2008]

A few months before this was announced for a American version of the film me and my girlfriend saw the foreign version of this movie. I have to say it was the scariest movie I've ever seen. We went to see this the night it came out because were like hey scary movie............ Holy crap was this movie terrible! I don't know how anyone can say this movie was scary at all. They have to be like 4 years old. Every scene they try to make scary was poorly done and was like slow moving. It seriously was pathetic. If you want a truly scary experience go see the foreign version trust me it has sub titles but is worth your time! Not this load of poop!

I've not watched the original.

[Dodge-Zombie · 6/10 · 25 June 2022]

It seems like the people who've seen the original don't like this remake. Those who haven't seen the original seem to enjoy this movie. I am one of those.

No it's not amazing but certainly not that bad. Anyone who enjoys a bit of spooky entertainment should probably give this a try.

The acting is ok. The script isn't terrible. The story is engaging enough.

Big in Japan

[kosmasp · 6/10 · 6 June 2020]

Ghost stories are big in Japan. And while the original movie this was based on is not Japanese the filmmakers made Japan the country the US remake should play in. Not a bad choice I reckon, with some interesting choices as main actors. It's been a while since I saw the original, which remember liking more than the remake.

Having said that, the extended and unrated cut of the Remake has some merits to it too. I urge anyone to rather watch this version than the PG13 version, that has to be weaker than the one I saw the other day. Better shock scenes and more for anyone remotely interested in horror to find shocking. Still the movie has flaws in character and story elements, that feel ridiculous to most watching. But let's not dwell on those points and rather "enjoy" the horror if you can

PG13 rating says it all

[valleyjohn · 3/10 · 2 December 2008]

Why do i do it? I keep complaining about these Asian remakes yet i keep watching them . Maybe i do it so you don't have to , maybe it's because I'm sadistic or maybe I'm just waiting for there to be one that's any good? Whatever the reason one thing that i know is true is that Shutter is worst i have seen yet.

For photographer Ben and his new wife Jane , his new assignment -- a lucrative fashion shoot in Tokyo -- was supposed to be a kind of working honeymoon. Ben and Jane arrive in Japan. But as they make their way on a mountain road leading to Mt. Fuji, their new life together comes to, literally, a crashing halt. Their car smashes into a woman standing in the middle of the road, who has materialised out of nowhere. Upon regaining consciousness after the accident, but they cannot find any trace of the girl .

Shaken by the accident and by the girl's disappearance, they arrive in Tokyo, where Ben begins his glamorous assignment. Having worked in Japan before and fluent in the language, Ben is comfortable there, and he eagerly reunites with old friends and colleagues. Jane feels very much like a stranger in a strange land as she makes tentative, unsettling forays through the city.

Ben, meanwhile, has discovered mysterious white blurs , evocative of a human form , that have materialised on an entire day's work from the expensive photo shoot. Jane's concerns escalate as she believes the blurs in Ben's photos are the dead girl from the road, who is now seeking vengeance for them leaving her to die...

Without watching Shutter you already know the format. Spirits that have pasty faces and fail to recognise the value of the slogan "rest in peace. Shutter is also another "ghost in the machine" story, except this time the machine is a camera.

The trouble is there is absolutely nothing scary about this movie . There is plenty of bangs and crashes and you are bombarded with noise but nothing at all visual that would remotely send a chill down the spine. There is one scene that i liked where the screen went black every few seconds as to imitate the flash of a camera but that is all i cant think of that i can say is good about this film.

The acting is irrelevant because the film is so dull . Fans of The American Office and Heroes might recognise a couple of the cast.

This is the first Asian remake i have seen that hails from from Thailand but it is still the same old dross that has been dished up over the last couple of years . Director Masayuki Ochiai has failed miserably to achieve anything worth while and it's a film that will fade from the memory very fast indeed.

The PG-13 rating says it all, while opening the gates to bored teenagers it will turn hardcore horror aficionados in the other direction.

I don't know about you but i want my Horror movies to be 18 rated and nothing less.

3 out of 10

Not completely original, but decent viewing for an evening ...

[Vic_max · 6/10 · 19 May 2009]

I don't know what the obsession with Asian horror is, because most movies based on them seem to bomb. However, this one was a bit better. It's got a familiar ghost story theme, but it's still decently executed.

The story is basically about an American couple in Tokyo who accidentally hit a girl while driving. Not long afterward, vague images of her begin to show up in their photographs ... and the story progresses from there.

Sound predictable? Surprisingly, there's more to this movie than that simplistic plot. I didn't think that there was and I was even beginning to get irritated when husband took on the typical blindly disbelieving sidekick role. However, even that led lead to some interesting developments.

All in all, this movie is decent viewing if you're watching it on TV late at night. It's atmospheric, serious in tone and has a relatively decent story. Not great - but not too terrible either.

Take a Ghost-Picture, it'll last longer!

[Coventry · 4/10 · 7 April 2008]

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.

Unrated DVD Review

[moviewizguy · 6/10 · 26 June 2009]

As a remake of the original 2004 Thai horror film, newlywed Ben and Jane Shaw have traveled to Tokyo, where photographer Ben is investigating a potentially lucrative job opportunity. While driving on a dark road at night, the couple runs over a mysterious woman who seems to appear out of nowhere and can't be found after the accident. Over the next few days, Jane goes sightseeing while Ben works, only to see strange apparitions that also appear on the photos she takes. After Ben's photos show the same ghostly forms, he confesses that he knows something about the woman they ran over, but it may be too late to stop her trail of terror.

I was surprised. I really was. Well, the idea of me liking this movie isn't a bit improbable, because I always seem to never loathe the new surge of Asian horror remakes that have been coming out the last few years. In fact, I seem to be enjoying most of them, but I was still surprised. Throughout the film, I found myself entertained and intrigued. Scared? When are they ever? Nevertheless, the film was entertaining. Do I keep my standards low? You can answer that yourself.

I have never seen the original film (whoever does?), but I found the premise very interesting. I was hooked and never found a boring moment in the film...ever. Now that says a lot. Maybe the idea of spirits trying to contact humans from photographs is interesting. It sounds plausible too. It's not as if a tape is going to kill you in seven days, right? Just look at the infamous photo of Abraham Lincoln standing behind his wife after he died.

The scares are kept at a minimum here, which is no surprise. After all, it's PG-13, geared towards a certain young demographic. However, there are still some moments of suspense and scenes I found disturbing, probably due to the extra five minutes in the unrated version I've seen. Also, the movie doesn't try to scare the audience with pop out moments. Doesn't that just annoy you? Thankfully, there aren't any here, or at least any major ones that I can remember. There is one fantastic scene that is pretty memorable and can get underneath one's skin. I'll not spoil it but I'll just say it involves a camera (duh). The scene is really well done which then leads me to the technical aspects of the film.

I've got to say, I was impressed by the overall look of the film, most of it shot in Japan. I found the scenery just beautiful and gorgeous. The cinematography was great along with an actual score that I found stunning. I also liked the fact that there were little uses of CGI and big set pieces. The movie feels contained in its own world and it doesn't depend on CGI to make audiences feel uncomfortable. What made this movie not linger in the "bad area" were the leads. Joshua Jackson and Rachael Taylor were both great in the film. I really liked them.

In the end, the movie also managed to trick me in one or two plot twists I didn't predict. Sure, the scares are mostly nonexistent, save two or three scenes, but what can I say? I found myself thoroughly entertained and intrigued from beginning to end. The leads were also pretty good. Overall, if you usually enjoy these PG-13 Asian horror remakes, movies like THE RING and THE GRUDGE, there's no doubt that you'll enjoy this too. For others, if you loathe these remakes, well, you know what to do.