Shutter (re-make)

Crappy American remakes of Asian horror movies—why can’t I quit you? For Shutter, Hollywood turns its hungry gaze on Thailand and makes one of the finer horror films to reach US shores from the Asian continent a boring, and unscary affair.

    Shutter stars Joshua Jackson (you know, Pacey Witter from Dawson’s Creek…uh, not that I’ve ever watched that) as Benjamin Shaw, an American photographer who scores a job in Tokyo. He’s friends with a few other douchebag Americans (Bruno (David Denman) and Adam (John Hensley)) living in Japan who use their jobs in the fashion industry to score with models. Benjamin is also just married to his wife Jane (Rachael Taylor), and the two seem to be off to a great start on their lives together. But, wouldn’t you know it; an incident on a country road where Jane apparently runs over a young woman (Megumi Okina) seems to ignite a haunting. All of the couple’s photos from then on are marred by ghostly images, and soon, those images begin manifesting themselves off camera as well.



    There is a brief introduction course on “spirit photography,” an actual paranormal phenomenon. It’s said in the film that it’s been around for as long as there’s been photography, which makes sense since it’d be impossible for spirit photography to have existed in a world without cameras. This is just background noise, though, designed to distract you from the fact that this is just another shabby carbon copy of a decent foreign movie, prettied up with white folks for US audiences.

    Much like this winter’s The Eye with Jessica Alba, Shutter is pretty much a note-for-note recreation of the film by Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom and Sopon Sukdapisit. For that, it’s not all bad. Unlike many other Asian horror films, such as The Ring or The Grudge, there’s an actual reason behind all the horror and violence. The terrifying things happening to the characters are not just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The US remake also benefits from some interesting direction from Japanese filmmaker Masayuki Ochiai, the man behind the bizarre but uneven J-Horror piece Kansen (Infection). Without much in the way of special effects or gruesome makeup, Ochiai creates some tension by employing close-ups, slow pans and lingering on shots for a few beats too long. Along with cinematographer Katsumi Yanagishima, the pair are able to make commonplace images like a pretty young woman sitting in the corner of the room eerie and somewhat horrific.

    These flashes of craftsmanship are too few and far between, though, and hardly make up for a cast that seems to be going through the motions. Jackson and company are unable to turn these characters into real people—maybe because they didn’t have that much to work with—and as such, the film, which is very light on action and exploitation compared to most other horror flicks, just plods along. Also—and this could be because I knew what was coming—Shutter is not nearly as frightening as the Thai-language version, which was one of the more shockingly entertaining films I’ve seen in quite some time. Unfortunately, much like the photocopy of a famous work of art, the English-language remake of Shutter is just another soulless reproduction.

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