SHUTTER

Shutter
Dir: Masayuki Ochiai, 2008
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482599/
Reviewed by: Whitney


Synopsis: A recently married woman moves to Japan to follow her photographer husband's job.  It's there that she finds herself feeling out of place and a little bit lonely while her husband is focused on his career.  At this point, the plot could go two ways.  Scenario number 1: To bide her time, she befriends an older actor, played by Bill Murray (my favorite male actor of all time), and finds herself sharing tense, but platonic moments exploring Tokyo together.  Though their bond strengthens, Bill Murray is scheduled to return to America while Scarlett Johannson is left to return to her bleak way of living as a married woman in a foreign country.  Upon parting, Billy Murray whispers a secret to S. Jo.  I'm guessing he said, "Joshua Jackson will someday star in the movie of our lives, but it will be a horror film instead of this romantic sleeper."

OR

Joshua Jackson stars alongside Racheal Taylor in the horror version of this movie.  Ergo, Shutter.  Where the plots between this movie and Lost in Translation diverge is when, instead of Racheal Taylor's character, Jane, falling in love with an older actor to bide her time, she well, discovers a dark secret that involves ghosts, and phantom car crash, and eerie photographs.  

As with traditional Japanese horror films, the suspense surrounds a ghost story and the ghost in the story has a past secret that needs to be revealed in order for the hauntings to cease.  Usually these Japanese scary movies use a device in which the message of terror is relayed.  In The Ring (which is going to be my next, or next next review), the device is a film.  Sometimes the ghost is attached to an object or particular person, in this movie, it's both.  Well, the female ghost (which seem to be the gender of choice for Japanese spirits told in these stories) in this movie is more or less attached to a person, but reveals their message through photographs.  I hope you are following this, because, just like making a fine soup, I'm giving you all of the ingredients and plot twists I'll ever need to write about for any Japanese ghost story movie I review.  Americans like slashers, Europeans like monsters, Japanese like ghosts, and Canadians are afraid of not being taken seriously.  Every country has their thing.  

Review:  I kind of enjoyed this movie, even though it was exactly what you could expect.  The make-up, cinematography, art direction, and characters were all pretty standard.  I did find it amusing that they took a Japanese horror film, turned it into an American horror film, but still managed to set it in Japan.  Joshua Jackson does a good job of playing a douche bag.  Oh how far he has come from his Mighty Duck days. I think the one thing that didn't make this movie too dull for me were the tense moments.  The scary parts weren't frightening per se, but they were tactfully placed, so props to the editors on this film.  

There is a sequence in the movie where Jane is researching why all of her photos have strange orbs or figures that seemed to have materialized upon developing them, she visits a paranormal magazine that publishes similar pictures and stories.  The editor takes her into a secret back room filled with "real" photo submissions lining the walls.  I thought I had heard or read somewhere, (though IMDB could not confirm this), that the photographs with orbs and unexplained faces and figures were actual photos collected and this was the inspiration for the film.  I can appreciate the movie a little more if this is factual, but again, I can't confirm, via my laziness and lack of extensive research, if this is true or not at the moment.  

Oh, one more thing:  There is a point in the movie when Joshua Jackson is developing his film in a dark room (dated) and a part where he says his entire photo shoot was ruined because of a glare in all of the pictures and sort of flips out because of it.  Ummmm... photoshop, anyone?  If you are, and he is, a professional photographer, photoshop is part of your life.  Doi. 

Overall, I'd recommend this movie only if you have seen other Japanese/American ghost story remakes before, simply because it isn't the best of the bunch, but still has some watch worthy moments.  The end is sort of intense and fairly satisfying in the way it moves and is shot.  If you do watch it, get in the mind set, turn of the lights, watch it at night, and pay attention, otherwise, it will probably easily be lost on the viewer.  

Rating: 6/10
Scare Scale: Scary in the dark room.