Shutter (2008 film)

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Shutter
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Masayuki Ochiai
Produced by	Doug Davison Takashige Ichise Roy Lee Sonny Mallhi
Written by	Luke Dawson
Starring	Joshua Jackson Rachael Taylor
Music by	Nathan Barr
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	March 21, 2008. Australia May 15, 2008^[1]
Running time	1 hr 25 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Shutter is a 2008 remake of the 2004 Thai film of the same name. The remake was directed by Masayuki Ochiai, and was released on March 21, 2008.^[2].

1 Cast
2 Plot
3 Critical reception
4 DVD release
5 Box office performance
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Cast

Joshua Jackson as Benjamin Shaw
Rachael Taylor as Jane Shaw
James Kyson Lee as Ritsuo
David Denman as Bruno
John Hensley as Adam
Maya Hazen as Seiko
Megumi Okina as Megumi Tanaka

[edit] Plot

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Ben and his new wife Jane leave New York for Tokyo, Japan, where Ben has a job as a photographer. In celebration of their recent marriage the couple leave a few days early, and rent a cabin. On the way to the cabin, a girl walks into the road and Jane swerves to avoid hitting her. The car crashes into a tree and Jane and Ben are knocked out. When she awakens, Jane realizes that she might have hit the girl and rushes out of the car to find her. The couple find nothing. Ben thinks that the girl has already been found and has gotten the medical help that she needed. He also thinks the injuries weren't life-threatening, as they cannot find any evidence of a collision. After calling for help the authorities couldn't find anything either, and they think Jane may have just hit an animal. However, Jane is shaken by the incident, and Ben's neck begins to bother him. The next morning, they start to enjoy their honeymoon and Ben wants to take pictures to record the event.

After a few days Ben reports to work with his friend Bruno. Jane accompanies him but is left to her own devices as Ben needs to meet clients. Jane eventually gets the honeymoon photos and finds they are full of a mysterious light. When she shows the photos to Ben she tells him that she thinks something is off with them. Ben however dismisses her concerns and assumes there was an error with the camera. Still concerned Jane shows the pictures to Ben's assistant Seiko who says that the mysterious light is spirit energy. Interested, Jane asks how she knows this, and Seiko says her ex-boyfriend runs a spirit photography magazine. Seiko insists that Jane meet her ex the next day after work. That night, Ben, Jane, Bruno, his date and Adam go to a traditional Japanese restaurant.

The next day, Jane and Seiko visit Seiko's ex-boyfriend, Ritsuo and learn both that Polaroid pictures cannot be faked and also that a psychic Murase was written up by the magazine for his efforts in analyzing the photos. Meanwhile Ben takes his still aching neck to the doctor, but the doctor can find no injury and simply prescribes painkillers. That night Jane tells Ben about her visit to the magazine and asks him to go with her to see Murase. Ben surprisingly agrees to see Murase because the mysterious light has begun to appear in his pictures at work.

Jane and Ben show Murase the photos and tell him about the accident and their belief that the spirit may be of the girl Jane hit. Murase takes the photos and begins to speak very emotionally, but Ben does not translate everything Murase says for Jane. Instead he insists they leave. Ben only tells her her that Murase says that spirits can bond with humans when extreme emotions (love, hate, anger, etc) are involved.

Later on Jane looks at the photos of Ben's project that were ruined by the mysterious light. Curious she decides to visit the office building in the photo. Armed with a borrowed Polaroid camera she heads to the building to take pictures and see if she finds any proof of the spirit's presence in the building. When she gets there, she goes to the floor where the light has gathered, and takes pictures in the empty office. She encounters the spirit, and learns that the girl's name was Megumi Tanaka and that Ben knew her.

When she confronts Ben about it, he admits that he and Megumi were once involved in a relationship, but that she was very obsessive and clingy. Ben says he attempted to balance work and their blossoming relationship. But Megumi's obsessive and clingy nature worsened when her traditional Japanese family did not approve of the pair. And when Megumi's father died she went from clingy to suicidal. Realizing this is too much for him to handle, Ben ends the relationship with Megumi. Admitting that he never loved her, Ben gets Adam and Bruno to tell her that the relationship is over and that she needs to stop following him around. Jane is upset with Ben and decides they need to find Megumi.

Later Ben calls Bruno, who says that he recently saw Megumi pointing at him on the street, which disturbs him. Meanwhile Adam is at his photography studio taking pictures of a model. He asks her to strip to her underwear, and gets his camera from a box full of pictures of scantily-clad women. He begins taking pictures but starts seeing Megumi through the camera's viewfinder. He keeps pausing while taking pictures, which begins to irritate the model. As he is about to take another picture the camera's viewfinder shatters into his eye.

Meanwhile, Ben and Jane are at Megumi's home, as they walk through the house they find her fly infested decaying body along with bottles of potassium cyanide strewn on the floor. They are still in shock over this discovery when Ben receives a call from Bruno about Adam's accident. Ben says that they will meet Bruno at the hospital.

Ben and Jane arrive at the hospital but Bruno is not there. After waiting awhile Ben calls Bruno's cellphone. Bruno answers but does not say anything, and the camera pans out, showing his bloody hands slicing up photographs into origami shapes with a razor blade. Ben tells Bruno that Adam didn't make it. Ben and Jane leave the hospital and head for Bruno's home.

When they arrive, they find empty picture frames on the walls, with the photos all cut up on the table, and the television is loud and blaring. While Jane examines the cut-up photos on the table she sees Bruno, in a state of shock standing at the end of the hall. Suddenly he charges towards her and as Jane dives out of the way he jumps off the balcony of his high-rise and falls to his death on the concrete below. Ben is visibly distraught.

Ben and Jane realize that Megumi's spirit murdered Adam and Bruno. Ben says that Megumi's funeral will be in a few days, she will be cremated, and after the service, they can return to New York. When they return home to pack things, Jane opens a parcel of photos of their wedding, and says, "we aren't going anywhere". Megumi is in their wedding photos. They decide to leave the apartment and spend the night in a hotel.

That night while Jane sleeps, Ben is haunted by images of Megumi in the room, brushing her hair, looking at him, sitting on the floor, initiating sex with him etc. He is frantic until the ghost of Megumi confronts him with a kiss and Jane wakes to find him choking. She attempts to help him, gets caught by the ghost in a curtain and is smashed up against a window which cracks. In desperation, Jane yells, "He didn't love you!" and Megumi stops. Ben is gasping for air, but alive.

After Megumi's cremation Ben and Jane return to New York, thinking it's all over. However, one day while Ben is at work, Jane takes a picture of a rose petal shaped heart Ben gave her. She drops the film at a 1 hour developer and later returns home with the photos in an envelope. While preparing dinner, she opens the envelope and is shocked by what she sees. The first picture is one taken by Ben during their first day in Tokyo. However the rest of the pictures are of Megumi. When viewed as a flipbook she can be seen crawling across the floor, standing in front of a large picture of Jane, and then disappearing. Jane looks in Ben's belongings for the camera that he used in Japan, and finds the removable drive in the camera, which she loads into the computer, and is disgusted by what she finds.

When Ben gets home, he immediately knows something is wrong. He asks Jane what is wrong and she opens the laptop and asks him what the photos are of and how he could have done such a thing. We see Megumi in a compromising position with Bruno and Adam. Ben tells Jane that Megumi was crazy, she was obsessed and she wouldn't stop harassing him. So when Bruno and Adam got involved, Adam suggested giving her some pills that were like sleeping pills but a little stronger, and photographing her in a compromising position so they could blackmail her against her prim and proper family to finally leave Ben alone. However, as Ben began taking the photos Adam and Bruno took advantage of Megumi and forced themselves on her. Ben admits to Jane that the situation got out of control and he blames himself for not doing anything. Jane is disgusted and leaves Ben, realizing that Megumi was trying to warn her about Ben and not harm her.

Angered by Jane's departure Ben takes out a Polaroid camera and begins photographing the apartment looking for Megumi. He yells and screams for her. The pictures show nothing, and in anger, he drops the camera and it takes a photo. He picks up the photo, it shows Megumi sitting on his shoulders. This explains his "injury" and why his neck hurts and why the nurse weighed him multiple times, his weight was that of two people. In an effort to rid himself of her once and for all, he hooks up a large amount of power to a photography light and puts the light to his neck. The power goes out in the building and we hear Ben scream.

The next scene is Ben in hospital. A nurse wheels a tray of food into the room. Ben appears completely catatonic and slumped over. The nurse injects his arm, sets the food down on the table and leaves the room. As the door closes, in the mirror is a reflection of Megumi's spirit hugging Ben, causing him to be slumped over. So Megumi got what she wanted, to be with him forever.

[edit] Critical reception

The film was not screened for critics, often an indication that the studio feels it will receive poor reviews, but also common among horror films in general, which stride away from a younger audience that does not tend to abide by reviews as much as other demographics.

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 7% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 44 reviews.^[3] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 37 out of 100, based on 12 reviews.^[4]

[edit] DVD release

Shutter will be on DVD July 15, 2008 and the unrated edition will include commentary, Featurettes, deleted scenes, alternate ending, and a sneak peek.

The theatrical version will be sold as well.

[edit] Box office performance

The film was released March 21, 2008 in the United States and Canada and grossed $10.4 million in 2,753 theaters its opening weekend, ranking #3 at the box office.^[5] As of May 22, 2008, it has grossed a total of $41.6 million worldwide — $25.8 million in the United States and Canada and $15.8 million in other territories.^[6]