Camden movies: Shutter directed by Masayuki Ochiai | It isn’t the best start to a honeymoon for newly-weds Ben (Joshua Jackson) and Jane (Rachael Taylor) after they arrive in Tokyo to explore a new photographic career in Japan.

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 15 May 2008

Girls on film: Rachael Taylor is troubled by images appearing in her husband’s photography

Camden cinema | Shutter review| Masayuki Ochiai | Starring Racheal Taylor

SHUTTER
Directed by Masayuki Ochiai
Certificate 15

IT isn’t the best start to a honeymoon for
newly-weds Ben (Joshua Jackson) and Jane (Rachael Taylor) after they arrive in Tokyo to explore a new photographic career in Japan.
On the way from the airport Jane accidentally runs over a young girl – or so she believes. Yet there’s no body in the road, though the
distraught bride is sure she hit her.
But both Ben and the investigating police refuse to believe her.
Odd. Even more odd is when the victim’s blurred image appears in their honeymoon photos as a pale streak of light (shades of The Omen) – and Jane becomes
convinced she is being haunted.
Hollywood has long been in love with Japanese horror movies – there seems to be a bottomless pit of ideas and themes to be explored, even if most of them are to do with connecting the living with the dead. Such a one is Shutter.
Looking east, there have been numerous remakes, mostly forgettable, but some – like Takashi Milke’s One Missed Call and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s terrifying Pulse – taking their place in “J-horror” history.
Shutter hovers uneasily between the two factions, and sadly comes down on the wrong side of the cemetery.
Jane’s life begins to unravel when the “spirit image” starts to materialise away from the camera’s shutter. Apparently the spectre is a “Yurei” – the “traditional tortured Japanese spirit with black hair and a pallid complexion” that won’t rest until its death is avenged.
Now Jane is seeing the face in shop windows, doors, mirrors – and finally face to face with Jane herself. She starts investigating her husband’s past, and finds he may not be the nice guy who wooed and won her.
Director Masayuki Ochiai sensibly makes his movie more of a mystery for its effect than indulging in sheer shock tactics, and this is where he scores.
But you’ll need all your patience to stick with the twists and turns as the story unfolds.

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