Shutter (The Original) (2004/Tartan/DTS/Thailand)
Picture:
C Sound: B- Extras: C- Film: C-
Zombies
with long hair, long white clothes and blood all over their deranged
expressions, people who cannot awake from their nightmares, preoccupations with
self-mutilation and even sex and rape.
These are the tired elements of a cycle of Asian Horror films from
Thailand, Japan, China and Korea long since played out, even in Hollywood
remakes. The Banjong
Pisanthanakun/Parkpoom Wongpoom thriller Shutter
(2004) has all these familiar elements and they go nowhere fast with them.
The twist
here is that instead of videotape or computers capturing the killer ghosts, it
is back to old photochemical still photos and even Polaroids at one point. That was a welcome twist, but the rest of the
film might as well have captured the ghosts on Fisher Price toys. A couple (Ananda Everingham as photographer
Tun and Natthaweeranch Thongmee as Jane) accidentally kill someone by running
them over and abandon the scene. They
must pay, but unfortunately, so do we.
Had all
the new clichés and predictability been abandoned, this could have been really
good and the actors are not bad, but this is a very long 95 minutes of every
single thing we have seen before, no mater how graphic it gets. For extreme genre diehards only, if that, the
rest can try something else from Tartan.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image has color that seems strained and limits
any natural look intended despite stylization.
Detail and depth are a constant issue as well. The DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes are
decent, but dialogue is constantly weaker than the rest of the mix. Sometimes it is because it was recorded with
a certain echo that needed looped.
Extras include interviews, the original trailer, a behind the scenes
piece and Tartan trailer when the DVD starts you cannot forward.
- Nicholas Sheffo
