**1/2 out of ****Does the thought of another foreign horror remake make you shudder? Well, fortunately there is "Shutter," one of the best in recent memory. The profitable Asian horror-remake phenomenon took off in 2002 with the wildly successful "The Ring" and "The Grudge," but has since crashed with this year's "One Missed Call" and "The Eye."
"Shutter" manages to standout with a complete, sensible and suspenseful storyline, which makes up for the lack of scares. What's the common everyday technology we should fear this time around? A camera. Produced by the makers of "The Ring" and "The Grudge," Rachael Taylor from "Transformers" plays the role of Jane Shaw, taking the place of Naomi Watts and Sarah Michelle Gellar as our blonde leading lady. The movie starts on Jane's wedding day as she and her husband, professional photographer Benjamin (Joshua Jackson) prepare for a quick move to Tokyo, where he is renewing his career with a company he worked at two years ago.
After developing his first photo-shoot assignment, all of the pictures appear ruined by orbs of an unknown light source. The same quirk materializes on pictures from their honeymoon and tourism shots. While Benjamin thinks it is a camera problem, Jane believes it's a supernatural event after seeing a ghostly young Japanese woman (Megumi Okina) suddenly appear and disappear throughout her day. As Ben becomes immersed in his work, Jane tries to figure out why she is having ghostly hallucinations. The photos are "spirit photos" according to Ben's assistant, Seiko (Maya Hazen), knowing this because her ex-boyfriend, Ritsuo (James Kyson Lee), coincidentally operates a magazine featuring "spirit photos." This is one of the big plot-turning coincidences that occur in "Shutter."Learning from Ritsuo that the photos are trying to communicate, Jane tries to figure out what that message is before it is too late. Benjamin begins to see the woman, and his friends Adam (John Henley) and Bruno (David Denman) also detect her, with knowledge of who she might be.
As the mysterious light in the photos becomes a clearer image and the sightings turn into violent physical attacks, the newlyweds must find a way to end the manifestations before death do they part.
"Shutter" has a solid story with fairly reasonable explanations. Still, why the photo ghost can also appear physically outside of the pictures is a head-scratcher.
The young actors play their parts with intrigue -- though "Dawson's Creek" star Joshua Jackson seems absent and uninvolved in most of his scenes. Taylor does an effective job for the majority of the film but is static at times. The supporting cast holds up the film but does nothing spectacular to improve upon it.
Staying true to scary Asian remakes, writer Luke Dawson keeps the same imagery of the original 2004 Thailand version, but tones the plot down. Masayuki Ochiai directs the film with style but forgets how to leave the audience spooked. Even at the feature-length run-time of 85 minutes, it seems to drag a bit.
"Shutter" certainly works as a thriller, but not as a horror flick mainly because the camera shies away from gory parts and scenes that are too frightening to maintain a PG-13 rating.
For thrills without shrills, "Shutter" will definitely click for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment