It is just too bad that the film can’t hold up to the effort made by the studio for the Blu-ray release.
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Ever since the 1998 Japanese film "Ringu" received an Americanized big-budget remake, Hollywood studios have been having a ball bringing over Eastern horror films. It has been a near epidemic at times and the latest film to come to American shores is the Americanized version of the 2004 Thai film "Shutter." As is typical with these films, the Western version lacks the story and tension of the original and these watered-down horror pictures are only slicker looking with better production values. I had some high hopes for "Shutter" after hearing of how well the original film did and hoped that this remake would be at least half as good. It is not and this is one of the worst of the batch of Western derived versions of Eastern horror blockbusters.
In "Shutter," "Dawson´s Creek´s" Joshua Jackson stars as Benjamin Shaw. Shaw is a talented young photographer and marries Jane Shaw (Rachael Taylor) in a very nice wedding ceremony that follows with a very nice honeymoon in Japan, where Ben has taken a job as a fashion photographer with a few friends. Ben takes a few photographs of him and his new bride during the honeymoon, but they become distraught when a flaw appears on a large number of prints. Later, when Ben undertakes his first high-profile shoot, the flaws again return and Ben is put in a position where his company loses a lot of money and he nearly loses his job upon the return of these flaws that are blamed on the camera. However, his friends Bruno (David Denman) and Adam (John Hensley) are not about to can their good friend.
Jane´s early times in Japan find her being isolated and shaken after she believes that she and Ben had hit a young woman while traveling from their honeymoon to Tokyo. She fully believes they have murdered the young girl and soon begins to believe the flaws in the photographs are images of the young girl. Soon, Jane and Ben begin to see physical manifestations of the dead girl and the concept of spiritual photography is introduced to the film. At this point in the story, a cameo by "Heroes´" James Kyson Lee is introduced as an expert on spiritual photography and it becomes established that Ben and Jane are being haunted by the young girl and that perhaps her body is still in the physical realm and her spirit needs released. The plot thickens when the girl´s identity is revealed to be a translator named Megumi Tanaka (Megumi Okina); somebody that Ben had known during a previous visit to Japan.
"Shutter" loosely holds to the storyline of the original film, but injects a "Lost in Translation" storyline where poor Jane is caught in a foreign land. The general themes behind the story are solid, but the feel and haunting nature of "Shutter" is apparently lost in translation as the Americanized version of the film is nowhere near as entertaining or haunting as the film that critics poured praise upon. With Japanese horror director Masayuki Ochaia behind the helm of the picture, the hope of Eastern spiritual beliefs and sensibilities should have made their way to celluloid, but even a Japanese director cannot escape the American screenplay by Luke Dawson. This English language debut by Ochiai hardly seems indicative of a film shot in Japan by a Japanese director and comes off just another American remake that is more caring about style than substance.
While I found the notion of spiritual photography to be interesting, I could not find much enjoyment out of "Shutter." Part of the reason was that the story and the filmmakers seemed to completely miss the boat on providing true frights and the Eastern beliefs in spirits. Some poor jump frights and flash-heavy photography is used to scare the audience and it has become old hat after "The Ring" and "The Grudge" and other films to remake their way to American soil. The scene I despised the most involved Megumi appearing during the first photo shoot and talking to Ben. I learned this was injected for the Unrated version of the film and this was a great example of a scene that did not help the film out at all by jumping off the cutting room floor. The bottom line is that "Shutter" is neither scary nor spooky and if you´ve seen any of the two films the producers of "Shutter" were previously behind, and then you´ve seen all of the tricks in this film as well. Only the final reveal of why Ben´s shoulders were sore was of interest.
Cast is another problem with "Shutter." I loved seeing the lovely Australian actress Rachael Taylor in a role outside of "Transformers," where she was the most stunning computer nerd you´d ever meet, but having an Australian playing an American stuck in Tokyo is a stretch and there were times when Rachael´s accent snuck through just a little bit. While Rachael is a gorgeous young woman, I feel she was miscast. Joshua Jackson has not done too much memorable beyond "Dawson´s Creek" and "The Mighty Ducks" and he seems like another budget American actor casted because he has a nice smile. This is definitely not a movie where the film benefits from the film.
I like the idea of bringing foreign films to American soil. It´s a wonderful concept. However, I´d much rather prefer to see some subtitles thrown onto the original picture and see the original work of art shown in theater houses. "The Ring" was a unique idea at first, but this continued onslaught of Eastern horror films becoming Western duds is disconcerting and "Shutter" is a prime reason of why these pictures are not succeeding in the American market. They stink. Plain and simple. The original picture earned a 79% on RottenTomatoes.com. The remake chalked up a pathetic 7% on the same website, so I know I´m not alone in my belief that well enough should have been left alone. Now, please release the original so we can enjoy how the story is meant to be told.
Video:
At this moment I´m enjoying an ice cold Deer Park bottled water and this has absolutely nothing to do with the visual quality of "Shutter." However, I´d be far more willing to spill my water than dish out praise for the film, but the water tastes good and "Shutter" looks decent enough so my rant on spring water can end now. Twentieth Century Fox delivers "Shutter" to the Blu-ray format with a 1.85:1 framed picture that is mastered with the AVC MPEG-4 codec at a healthy 34 MBPS transfer rate. Japanese-derived horror films have typically arrived with grainy cinematography and disconcerting visuals and "Shutter" is no different. The picture quality reminds me of my bottle of water; it isn´t the absolute best looking thing on the planet, but it does the job well enough to enjoy.
Detail flutters between being quite good and hardly improving over DVD and color is within acceptable limits. One of the better looking scenes as far as clarity was a moment about a half an hour into the film when Jane is laying in bed. It shows wonderful contrast between light and dark and is very detailed. Once you get past the intended grain, detail can be good at times. Coloring is often skewed towards a cooler color scheme and skies are over blown so that you see bright white skies and no blue to be found; it just doesn´t make sense to provide a comfortable palette for a horror film these days. Black levels are good and the dark room shots looked decent enough. "Shutter" isn´t the best looking Blu-ray title you will see and I feel comfortable calling it average. However, it looks better than what this horrid picture deserves.
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