Wednesday, October 26, 2011

October Horror 2011: Day 26 - Shutter


Released in 2008 Shutter is an American remake of a Thai film of the same name from 2004.  The remake stars Joshua Jackson in the lead role.

The story is that an American photographer who previous lived in Japan has moved back to the states for a period of time.  He eventually gets married and accepts a job offer to move back to Japan.  From the honeymoon onward it seems some spirit is stalking the newlyweds mostly manifesting as distortions in photographs.  As the haunting intensifies the spirit manifest as hallucinations and then is able to manifest in the physical world just enough to kill some people until they die.  The nature of the haunting is revealed, then re-revealed.  The film closes with Josh Jackson in a mental hospital in a catatonic state with burns on his neck and face.

The movie is well developed, although not very creepy.  It is fairly suspenseful.  What drags it down a bit is the characters.  Namely, I want to punch most of them.  Josh himself isn't bad, but a bit dismissive and and makes some dumb moves.  In the end it turns out he's a big huge asshole, but it just doesn't make sense.  His wife has an unfortunate tendency to go wife-rage jealousy on every single woman who wanders within 4 feet of her husband.  The other characters are mostly superfluous.

The end is actually pretty damned creepy, with the final photo taking being just really messed up.  The film is a bit lackluster as a whole, but everything in it is pretty good.  It's worth watching because it is suspenseful and creepy at points, but probably not worth rewatching.

With the larger continents done, we move to Australia for: Cry_Wolf.

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