Shutter Down

So, if I had known that a few days later, I'd be watching Lake Mungo, or known what Lake Mungo was even about, I probably wouldn't have watched another movie about ghost photography first. Especially one not as good. But what can you do? I'd already watched Shutter, an American remake of an Asian horror film made in 2008. (Ooo, the twist! The original was made in Thailand, not Japan!)

Joshua Jackson was paving the road for the regular role he'd have in Fringe in a matter of months, playing a fashion photographer on a working honeymoon in Japan with his new wife. The two seem to hit a young woman with their car late at night, but when they recover, she seems to have vanished. Instead, her image starts manifesting in photographs the two take, apparently stalking the couple for some unknown reason.

There are a handful of well-produced, creepy scenes in the movie. As in The Ring, the casting of "the ghost" is just perfectly unsettling. The camera work in the scenes involving her is effective in a "make you want to shrink back in your seat" sort of way. In fact, across the board, the film is fairly well put together when it comes to visuals (save for one laughably bad image -- but blame that on the writer for concocting something that simply could not work).

The problem is, the dialogue is really cumbersome, and the characters are shallow. It actually ends up coming off quite a lot like Fringe, a show I abandoned a long time ago. The movie felt like an average episode of that show (which, even at its best, I found to be a sub-par X-Files knock off). A sort of "highlights reel" from the film would have merit, and Joshua Jackson certainly gives it all the heft and seriousness he can, but it still comes out a C+ at best. I say, refer to Lake Mungo for any ghost photo needs.