Rating:

The single best way to describe Shutter, a remake of a 2004 horror film from Thailand, would be “unremarkable.” In almost every way, this is an eminently forgettable movie.

Our story follows Ben (Joshua Jackson) and his young bride (Rachael Taylor) as they start their new life together by moving to Japan, where a high profile photography job awaits, not to mention the vengeful ghost of a creepy girl. Apparently that’s what happens in Japan when you run over a disappearing woman with your car; she follows you around looking menacing and humming nerve-jangling melodies, driving you ever closer to the brink of madness. Oh, plus she keeps showing up in photographs as a weird spectral blur or whatever, which I guess is where the movie gets its camera-related title. I say I guess because I don’t actually care.

The problem with a movie like this, where the story hinges on scary pictures and spirit photography, is that the whole concept just doesn’t inspire fascination the way it once did. It has, after all, been over 100 years since Kodak’s Brownie came on the market and put photography in the hands of the masses. Everyone takes pictures of everything all the time, and so the camera has lost its mystique as a peculiar halter of time and capturer of souls. Add to that the fact that the Spooky Camera story has been told and retold so many times over the decades, and you’re left with a movie that’s not only paper-thin plotwise and devoid of any real scare potential, but also tediously familiar.

All is not thoroughly awful, however. There is one scene in particular that I did find interesting, from a directorial standpoint. As with the rest of the picture, the scene is clearly derivative of many things that have come before, but it’s executed in a somewhat innovative fashion. The standard version of the scene takes place on a stormy night, with something nefarious lurking in the dark and suddenly—surprise!—being illuminated by a flash of lightning. Given the photography theme of this picture, that trope was appropriately twisted to feature the sporadic bursts of light from the flashbulb of a camera with—gasp!—a mind of its own! What makes the way it played out so interesting is twofold. In part, there’s the fact that with each new flash, the camera was an entirely different place, with the ghostly terror moving to and fro about the room without being seen by the hero. Further, there is just how long this sequence went on. I’m not saying it was the battle scene from The Two Towers, but the time spent at the mercy of the camera’s flash was far more intriguing to watch than the usual “two lightning strikes and the killer’s right behind you” way of doing things. First the ghost is here, then she’s there, then you don’t know where she is, and in between it all: total blackness. I’m not talking about movie darkness, where it’s bright enough to see everything. When the flashbulbs weren’t firing, the screen was utterly black, and you never knew quite what you’d see when the light came back. But I suppose there’s a problem with your movie when its best scene is one where most of the time the audience isn’t looking at anything at all.

Despite that one moment of interest, I cannot in good conscience recommend this movie to anyone. After this and other films like The Ring and The Grudge, I’m forced to conclude that I just don’t care what’s cooking over in Asia, horrorwise. During this movie as during those others, I spent most of the time just wondering when it would be over. Further, there wasn’t a single good scare in the film’s whole running time, which is a detriment to horror films as I understand them. The actors all did their best, but Joshua Jackson was miscast as the male lead. He’s extremely likeable as a supporting castmember, but whatever qualities it takes to carry a film, he doesn’t have them.

Skip this one, guys. You aren’t missing anything.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• The Tooth Fairy
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Halloween: Resurrection
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
• Psycho