Shutter (2008)

6/10

A remake of the Thai 2004 film "Shutter". Though I have not seen the original, I will guess that the American remake is not as good as the original. 'Rotten Tomatoes' seems to back up this opinion.

Joshua Jackson (TVs "Dawson's Creek") plays Ben, a professional photographer. His new bride is Jane, played by Rachael Taylor (the computer chick from "Transformers"). Megumi Okina (the social worker from "Ju-on") plays the ghost Megumi. Ben has two best friends, Bruno (David Denman) and Adam (John Hensley from TVs "Nip/Tuck"). Rounding the important cast is Ben's assistant Seiko and Seiko's ex-boyfriend Ritsuo, who just happens to be ini the field of photographing ghosts and spirits.

After the nice wedding of Ben and Jane, they move over to Tokyo where Ben has a photography job. He works for his friend Bruno, and his other friend Adam is also in the city. On the drive from the airport to the city, Jane seems to hit a woman in the middle of the street, crashing the car. When the couple awakens a few hours later, there is no trace of the woman. The police cannot even find any traces. The couple shakes off the experience.

After settling in at their new apartment, the couple discovers that a bunch of pictures from the wedding have a strange mist-like form. Ben blows it off as "must be a film problem". Or is it? Jane does some sightseeing, including taking bunches of pictures. They also end up with the mist problem. When Jane shows the pictures to Seiko, she takes Jane to see Ritsuo, who explains the phenomena of spirit pictures and shows her his creepy personal collection.

A couple of visions later by the couple cause them to go see a psychic, who speaks only Japanese. Ben declines to translate. Of course there is a whole backstory as the why this ghost is hanging around and causing problems. Lot's more freaky things happen. And frankly, I don't blame her for causing problems, and I really like the ending.

A fairly creepy movie for the most part, with some good shock scares. The acting is TV level. Imagery is what makes this film decent. The sound EQ is what is becoming prevalent recently- low dialogue with everything else loud, so you are constantly adjusting the volume to hear the dialogue to readjusting it to avoid blowing out your windows. The overall plot is straightforward, but revealed a piece at a time.

A rental if you can't find anything better. I got it for about $2, which is OK since that is cheaper than a Blockbuster rental. Party killer with its slow pace and unhappy backstory.