Spirits

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.

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.

As mentioned else where, this is a remake and has been done before and we have all seen it at least a few times before. Yes they are absolutely right. But the amount of 1 star reviews is undeserving.

This film has the slow methodical pace of an Eastern film but (as usual) loses a lot of the atmosphere when transfered to Hollywood.

Yes it is a bit weird they take photos of EVERYTHING and the sting in the plots tail isn't really that venomous. But Joshua Jackson (aks Pacey from Dawson's) does OK and the leading lady is pretty and does solid work and I did have the hairs on my arms standing to attention a number of times and it did make me jump.

Nothing special but much preferable to having teeth pulled.

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.

It was between this and Meet the Browns. And since I had only seen Diary of a Mad Black Woman, I caught the 10:15 showing at my local theater. It was packed! But yet, i don't know why. The movie was terrible. Well, all you need to know about this film is that there are ghosts in the pictures. That's it. The acting is tasteless, and the haunting sound effects and music fit the mood, but doesn't help this film. In some points in the film, the pictures will creep you out. But this wont give you nightmares, unlike The Exorsict. This film, of course is a Remake of another film of the same name. Just like The Eye. Stay away from this one, at best, its a rental. But to pay money to watch it in theaters,no.