Spirits

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.

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.

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.

this movie was mostly boring,with no real scares.plus this genre(remakes of Japanese movies)is getting to be old hat,at least in my mind.i also didn't think the actors put forth a lot of effort.i will admit the ending was a bit creepy,but a horror movie with a creepy ending,does not a complete horror movie make.the rest of the movie was lifeless and bland.having interesting characters with more than one dimension always helps.too bad this movie didn't have them.the storyline isn't too deep,either.i won't say this is the most boring movie i have ever seen,or the worst.it's just that it does nothing to distinguish itself from the rest of the pack.for me,Shutter is a 4/10

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.