Spirits

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

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.

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.

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.

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.