Seriously, maybe I am just at a geographical disadvantage. Haha.
Anyhow, saw that 'Shutter' was released in Singapore recently. If you didn't catch the ORIGINAL version of 'Shutter', the 'recent' Thai horror film, then it is really your lost! Haha...
A horror movie lover like me, who haven't been able to sit through a decent, non-conventional and most of all horrifying movie in the past few years... Shutter really made me not to lose faith in film makers . Seriously. At least it was something new . Away from the 'I can see dead people' people , long-haired white figures staring at you (I just don't understand why ghosts ALWAYS have long hair. Any idea?), the look-behind-your-back-I-am-going-to-get -you scenes, and the 'cursed' / possessed objects.
But no matter how entertaining some horror movies are (yes, they are at times. I don't understand why people can scream when there I am giggling and squirming all over my seat, trying so hard not to laugh out loud. It's soooooooo.... funny. Haha), I have to say that Asian horror films are DEFINITELY better than Hollywood's. Even the failing ones (think 'The Ring').
I guess perhaps they haven't gotten the difference between horror and gruesome? I don't know. Not that I'm trying to be biased coz I'm Asian, but honestly, the scare, goosebumps-all-over, i-am-going-to-peek-through-my-fingers, i-wont-hear-anything, factor is so much more in Asian horror films than Hollywood.
And that is probably why, and I'm sure they've finally realised, that there has been a trend to remake Asian films. Like The Ring (why on earth THAT one?!). I don't know what the Hollywood version is called. Don't ask me. I am not interested. Haha...
However, I have never been a fan of re-makes. I feel quite strongly for original versions and most re-makes of movies haven't been able to do justice to the originals. From what I can remember, I don't recall enjoying re-makes of any movies yet.
Anyway, back to Hollywood's trend of remaking Asian horror flicks. Precisely perhaps it is because it is an Asian production that makes it so appealing to audience and convincingly 'horrifying'. Making a re-make into a Hollywood version, although technically, the plot is there (but sometimes, it's really barely there), the removal of the 'Asian-ness' and replacing it with 'ang-moh' tactics and whatever-nots, what does that really spell? Not success, that's for sure. Haha...
And I am glad that someone out there share my sentiments... I love this review. I love the reviewer. Oh the sarcasm... Hahaha. Enjoy!!
Source: Moviexclusive
Synopsis:
A newly married couple discovers disturbing, ghostly images in photographs they develop after a tragic accident. Fearing the manifestations may be connected, they investigate and learn that some mysteries are better left unsolved.
Movie Review:
Take it as it is. A derivative, leaden, mind-numbingly simplified remake of a superior original. That’s not to say that it’s genuinely decent on its own merits if you’ve not already seen 2004’s seminal Thai-horror “Shutter” that reignited that country’s interest in producing slow burning, luxuriously made horror films. Interestingly, and perhaps even fittingly, the Hollywood machine that devours and regurgitates the recent slate of J-Horror films has turned its sights on “Shutter”, which arguably finds its core roots in Japan’s horror conventions in its vengeful, waifish ghost girl tormenting the living by manifesting through various electronic mediums. So what Masayuki Ochiai’s adaptation essentially becomes is a carbon copy of copy.
American photographer Ben Shaw (Joshua Jackson) and his blonde schoolteacher bride Jane (Rachael Taylor) go straight from nuptials to a working honeymoon in Japan, natch, because America just isn’t as scary to Americans as Asia is. Before heading off to Ben’s lucrative assignment in Tokyo, the newly minted couple heads to a remote countryside inn when a brief accident derails Jane’s constitution and compels her to seek out answers led by a phantasmal presence in photographs and a newly discovered knowledge of spirit photography.
Unremarkably, Luke Dawson’s screenplay omits and appends details to its basic premise. The original uses the stark disassociation of city living to intensify the eeriness of isolation, and the idea that we never really see what we think we know. Dawson’s script transplants the couple to a different country, ramping up the cultural alienation and exoticism of another culture. It’s not dissimilar to what we’ve already seen in “The Grudge” remakes.
Even as Ochiai’s direction is comparatively surefooted and patient with the camera choosing to hang on to a scene instead of ludicrously harping on jump-cuts and eyeball-rattling shots that bounce off the wall, the film feels unambitiously stale. “Shutter” goes through the motions of dourly checking off look-behind-you set pieces and reflections on windows. The plotting and performances are so apparent; you’d find yourself a couple of steps ahead of the film’s central faux-mystery. While the bizarre symbiotic relationship audiences have with particularly mediocre remakes of Asian horror films should still live on after this, what remains most terrifying is how textbook simple and undemanding the filmmaking has become for films of its ilk.
