Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on July 15, 2008, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
How do you go through an entire DVD commentary with only a handful of mentions of the movie’s director and one of its key producers? The participants on the talk track for Shutter manage it, not bringing up director Masayuki Ochiai until around the film’s halfway point and major Japanese producer Taka Ichise sometime after that, and only referring to them a couple of times each. That’s especially surprising when it comes to production executive Alex Sundell, who is clearly knowledgeable about Asian horror cinema and explains that she worked long and hard to secure the remake rights to the original Thai Shutter. That lengthy negotiation time helps explain why this English-language redux (previously reviewed here) felt so second-hand when it came out in the wake of two Rings and Grudges each, along with countless other official and unofficial adaptations of Far East scare fare centering on vengeful, dark-haired female ghosts.
Part of the familiarity comes from the new Shutter’s being set in Japan, which, according to scripter Luke Dawson in one of the DVD’s featurettes, was Ichise’s idea (the first draft was set in New York, which might have provided a fresh vibe). Here and in the commentary, where he and Sundell are joined by lead actress Rachael Taylor, Dawson notes that having their married-couple protagonists experience a photographic and then physical haunting while on a working honeymoon in Japan was intended to add a fish-out-of-water tension to the proceedings, and the trio make a strong case for the story’s dramatic underpinnings. It’s just a shame their clearly earnest efforts were undercut by the overall familiarity of both the images and scare tactics, plus a couple of severe implausibilities as the film heads toward the finish line. The unrated disc version of the movie (also available in its theatrical PG-13 edition) restores a few dramatic moments—duly noted by the commentators—that were excised for pacing, plus a startling impact shot reminiscent of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse.
The fine 1.85:1 transfer with creepy Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is also accompanied by a passel of featurettes covering both the movie and the paranormal phenomena that inspired it. A Ghost in the Lens is a standard making-of piece that incorporates a few interesting facts about ghosts and behind-the-scenes footage of one of the most effective setpieces (lead Joshua Jackson trapped in a dark room punctuated by camera flashes). A Cultural Divide: Shooting in Japan is more interesting, as it finds time to spotlight such below-the-line contributors as stuntman Shinji Noro (for whom this was one of many gigs doubling for women and schoolgirls) and translator Chiho Asado, who kept communication open between the American stars/producers and the Japanese creative team. Ochiai finally gets his say in an interview segment, in which he notes that he has a couple of friends who can see ghosts and explains the cultural origins of those ubiquitous long-tressed female specters. (Even he admits that these phantoms have become played out by now, though he optimistically offers that they might become popular again in the future.)
There’s also a thumbnail History of Spirit Photography and, for those inclined to fake such things, an onscreen primer on how to Create Your Own Phantom Photo. These are as disposable as the camera wielded by the newlyweds that plays a key part in Shutter’s story, as is a collection of text Tips for Ghost Hunting (no-brainer stuff like “Try the cliché locations”). The collection of deleted and extended scenes also has its negligible parts but also a few bits that should probably have stayed in the feature, like a shot of a fly on a wedding cake (a neat visual metaphor for the corruption invading the couple’s relationship) and glimpses of Taylor’s character on her own in Tokyo, emphasizing her feelings of isolation. Finally, the Inside Look consists of just a few minutes from Mirrors, the upcoming Fox film (directed by The Hills Have Eyes’ Alexandre Aja) also inspired by an Asian original—but one that, on this evidence, seems to be attempting to forge its own stylistic identity, rather than recycling the tired tropes that doom Shutter.
