SHUTTER - Blu-ray review

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.

Audio:

The audio mix of "Shutter" is provided in the familiar English 5.1 DTS HD Master Lossless Audio that is familiar to Fox releases on Blu-ray. Spanish and French 4.1 Dolby Digital Surround mixes are thrown into the package as well as subtitles in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Korean. "Shutter" is your typical horror film with lots of jump frights and ample opportunity for audio and harsh musical notes to help inject a little shock to the viewing experience. The musical score by Nathan Barr is similar to many other horror pictures, but it adds to the tension felt during the watching of the film and both audible scares and music sound quite good on the Blu-ray release. Dialogue is clear as well. While a large portion of the film takes part in the front channels, the rear surrounds are used nicely and I felt the audio mix was more than adequate.

Extras:

The wealth of bonus materials for "Shutter" begins with a Commentary by Production Executive Alex Sundell, Screenwriter Luke Dawson and Actress Rachael Taylor and introduces the viewer to the snazzy Polaroid-based menu system for bonus materials. It was a nice touch. I loved hearing Rachael Taylor's Australian accent and this was easily my favorite part of the commentary track. The cast and crew mingle nicely through the commentary track and deliver a detailed and informative discussion about "Shutter" that looks at the decisions behind remaking the film just a few years after its initial release and throughout the creation of the picture. It also talked about spiritual photography and other ‘frightful' elements of the film. This is a commentary that only those that loved the film will want to sit through, but it is a decent commentary track.

A second menu Polaroid contains jumps to three vignettes. A Ghost in the Lens (8:09) discusses the film "Shutter" and the part of Japanese culture regarding spiritual photography. It features an expert on the paranormal belief and is worth visiting if you enjoyed the film or are curious about a notion where spirits can exist from not just the dead, but the living. The second short, A Cultural Divide: Shooting in Japan (9:21) continues where the first vignette stopped and focuses on the difficulties in shooting a film on foreign soil. I kept wanting to see Bill Murray show up, but he didn't. The filmmakers had worked on "The Grudge" previously, so it wasn't an entirely new experience. The final selection on this second menu page is The Director: Masayuki Ochai (9:32) focuses entirely on the director; if you couldn't surmise that from the title. It was a nicely produced feature where questions are again shown on a graphic card and a translator helps the director out.

The third Polaroid-styled graphical overly has selections for two items. The first, A Conversation with Luke Dawson (5:33) features a few moments with the screenwriter of the film. I like Dawson, he seems like a relatively down-to-Earth guy and I enjoyed his skull desk decoration as well. Dawson isn't the most exciting person to listen to, but he provides some nice information. The second item is A History of Spirit Photography (4:50) is an all-too-short look at the paranormal belief of spirit photography. Whether or not you believe in such ‘science' is irrelevant as this is an interesting little supplement and touches on a few aspects of spooks, ghosts and photographs. It fits in nicely with the feature film.

The next page of bonus features isn't quite as interesting and contains two more items. The Create Your Own Phantom Photo (4:00) gives a faux vintage documentary on how to make your own spiritual photograph. I have Photoshop and I can tell you that this isn't nearly as easy as they show even if you have Photoshop or another good photo editor and if you have the necessary graphical talents, then you could figure this out on your own. The Hunt for the Haunt: Tools and Tips for Ghost Haunting (2:29) is pretty much useless, it provides a few text-based screens that gives common sense tips on finding ghosts; such as looking into a graveyard at night and to use a Polaroid camera to capture them on film.

After these less than stellar supplements, there are more. Fox Movie Channel Presents In Character with Joshua Jackson (2:06) is incredibly short and almost as incredibly dull. For two whole minutes Joshua Jackson talks about his character to set up and advertise the film. This feature is a waste of time, but at least it isn't much time to waste. The Japanese Spirit Photography Videos (17:16) is broken into three parts, but you can play them collectively. This was a three part series of news reports about spirit photography and one of the more interesting supplements; even if everybody seemed a little ‘off.' It made for good ghost stories. The third part with the dead girl was gruesome. The fifteen Alternate and Deleted Scenes (27:18) are truly only for those that enjoyed the film, but it is a nice collection of material.

Closing:

This Blu-ray release of "Shutter" contained a large number of supplements and was the ‘unrated' version of the film. With the theatrical release getting nearly universally panned by critics, it seems like an odd decision to put so many bonus materials onto the disc. It also doesn't make much sense for the unrated version of the film to inject a few moments that were removed to speed up pacing; so the new unrated version is just a slower and blander version of the poorly received theatrical version. I scratch my head at some of the decisions, but I must applaud Fox for at least putting a lot of effort into this release. It's a lousy film, but a decent little Blu-ray release that has a lot of supplements, good audio and a lot of marketing heart. It is just too bad that the film can't hold up to the effort made by the studio for the Blu-ray release.