Shutter (2008)
Directed by Masyuki Ochiai
Written by Luke Dawson
Starring Joshua Jackson, Rachael Taylor
Release Date March 21st, 2008
Published March 22nd, 2008
As I walked into the theater to see the latest American remix of a Japanese horror film, Shutter, I told one of the ushers exactly how I thought the film would play out. Based on my years of experience with this kind of movie and the film's ham-fisted ad campaign, I was able to devine the entire plot and plot twist of Shutter without having witnessed a frame. Watching the movie play out, exactly as I predicted, I was forced to stifle laughter, not wanting to spoil the experience for those of such hardy stock they have made themselves unaware of any previous Japanese horror film and of the film's ad campaign. Their ignorance being their only salvation.
Joshua Jackson stars in Shutter as Ben, a fashion photographer newly married to Jane (Rachel Taylor). The happy couple is forgoing their honeymoon in favor of a working vacation in Japan where Ben will work during the day and tour the country with his new bride at night. That was the plan anyway. Unfortunately, on the way to their temporary new home they are involved in an accident and a young girl is killed. Or so they thought. Jane is convinced that she ran over a woman but when the police arrive, no body is found.
Haunted by the accident, Jane tries to get on with life in Tokyo. Traipsing around the city snapping touristy photos, Jane makes a terrifying discovery, the ghost of the woman she thinks she killed is appearing in all of her photos. James Kyson Lee plays an expository character named Ritsuo who conveniently explains what he calls spirit photography, ghosts linked to people and only seen in photos. Another expository character fills in the blanks about why spirits attach themselves to the living and if you haven’t already figured out where this story is heading, you don’t watch many movies.
Directed by J-horror veteran Masayuki Ochiai, Shutter starts off as a rip off of The Ring and never deviates from the ripoff path. Where in The Ring it was a cursed videotape in Shutter it’s cursed photography. Where in The Ring it was a young dead girl stalking the living through media format in Shutter, oh what a shock, it’s young dead girl stalking people thru media format. Even the deaths in each film are similar. A guy falls from a balcony in Shutter just as Bill Pullman drops from a balcony in The Grudge. Life force sucked out in Shutter? How about the death of the young nurse in the opening The Grudge?
Director Ochiai and screenwriter Luke Dawson deliver not one original moment during the brutal 90 minutes of Shutter.
