Movie review: Shutter

by John P. Meyer

For anyone who's seen a Japanese vengeful spirit horror film in the past dozen years or so, there'll be few surprises in store during the 85 minutes they decide to spend watching the Americanized Asian ghost tale, Shutter.

I suppose the term "Americanized" should be taken provisionally, since the director selected by Vertigo Entertainment (producers of The Ring, The Grudge and The Eye) to make their latest English language retread (this time of a Thai original) is Japanese director Masayuki Ochiai. Shutter marks his first English-language feature. Masayuki-sama's direction - while serviceable - reveals nothing in the way of bravura stylistic touches which would lead us to wait with decomposing bated breath for his next scary offering.

Standing in for Jessica Alba / Sarah Michelle Gellar as the innocent yet undeniably attractive young woman who must discover what the vengeful spirit really wants (or risk having the wits scared out of her at every turn) is Rachael Taylor (as Jane Shaw), late of Transformers. Ms. Taylor's character has just gotten hitched to Benjamin Shaw (Joshua Jackson, from Dawson's Creek), an old-school photographer who prefers to continue using film even though he keeps experiencing the sorts of imaging problems that could be entirely avoided by the use of digital - what with its real-time proofing capabilities and all.

Ben has just been hired by an old buddy of his who conveniently invites him to Japan to work a project for a big corporate client. I say "conveniently" because it's much easier to make a Japanese-themed vengeful spirit movie right there in Japan where the genre took root. Transporting the action to someplace like Cleveland might prove to be too big a chasm for American audiences to conceptually span.

So, here's the big plot-device deal: upon taking up residence in Tokyo (in a luxuriously expansive flat-cum-studio whose rent would likely bankrupt Bear Stearns, if they weren't bankrupt already), Jane and Ben begin experiencing weirdnesses on the order of Jane seeing ghostly visions in subway car windows and Ben being caressed by Jane-like hands while Jane is nowhere in the house. And what's so terrible about that, you ask? It is terrible, trust me, because their spectral visitations are caused by the unquiet spirit of a person named Megumi, who Jane thinks she ran down on a snowy Japanese highway and Ben may or may not have had a past romantic connection with. (Um - this may or may not require a spoiler alert.)

Interestingly (and there aren't many statements about the movie to which that modifier can be accurately appended), the actress who portrays Megumi is actually named Megumi; even more interestingly, actress Megumi Okina portrayed the innocent yet undeniably attractive young woman who must discover what the vengeful spirit really wants (or risk having the wits scared out of her at every turn) in the original Japanese version of The Grudge (Ju-on).

Well, that's about it, really. Jane and Ben spend an hour or so (of movie time) figuring out that the blurry imperfections they keep seeing on their photographs are in fact not a result of light leaks but messages from beyond (as in, beyond any sensible person's willingness-to-sit-through-yet-another-telegraphed-from-deep-center-field-scream-inducing-scare threshold). There are lots of creepy echoing sound effects and a relatively effective funhouse strobe light episode, but the best bit (excuse the expression) comes when poor dead-and-decaying Megumi corners Ben on the bedroom floor and French ghost kisses him with a rotting lingual member the size and approximate color of Cleveland.

"STRAIGHT TO VIDEO... STRAIGHT TO VIDEO!": "I think they're trying to tell us something." - publisher of spectral photography magazine, re. the specters in his photography.

AND GEORGE W. SAID THAT THE WAR WAS OVER: "The medium said that spirits are tied to the flesh." - Jane, to Ben.