Shutter (2008 film)

Shutter

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Masayuki Ochiai
Produced by Takashige Ichise
Roy Lee
Doug Davison
Sonny Mallhi
Written by Luke Dawson
Starring Joshua Jackson
Rachael Taylor
Megumi Okina
Music by Nathan Barr
Cinematography Katsumi Yanagijima
Edited by Tim Alverson
Michael Knue
Production
company
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • March 21, 2008 (2008-03-21)
Running time
 85 minutes
90 minutes (Unrated cut)
Country United States
Language English
Budget $8 million[1]
Box office $47,879,410[2]

Shutter is a 2008 American supernatural horror film directed by Masayuki Ochiai and starring Joshua Jackson, Rachael Taylor, and Megumi Okina. The film is a remake of the 2004 Thai horror film of the same name and was released on March 21, 2008.[3] Despite a generally negative reaction, the film was a box office success grossing nearly 6 times its budget.

Plot

Ben Shaw (Joshua Jackson) and his new bride, Jane (Rachael Taylor), leave New York City for Tokyo, Japan, where Ben has a job as a photographer. While traveling, Jane hits a girl in the middle of the wilderness, running over her. They find no body or even a trace of blood and decide to leave, thinking the victim was all right. They later start to find mysterious lights in their photos, which are later identified as spirit photography by Ben's assistant, Seiko Nakamura (Maya Hazen). Jane begins to have eerie dreams and visions as if they are trying to tell her something, and senses a haunting presence stalking them. Ben begins to complain of severe shoulder pain, and his friends begin to comment he's looking bent and hunched over, though the doctor can find no cause. Seiko takes Jane to her ex-boyfriend, Ritsuo (James Kyson Lee), whose career is to investigate paranormal activities, and he tells them that the lights are spirits, manifestations of intense emotions trying to communicate. At a subway station, Jane spots the ghostly presence of the girl she hit, causing her to believe that she killed the girl. Ben later also has a similar terrifying encounter. They go to a medium, Murase; however, Ben refuses to translate what Murase says, claiming he is a fraud.

Jane decides to visit the office building in one of the photos. She takes pictures and encounters the yūrei, 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 after the death of her father, she became very obsessive and clingy, and eventually he dumped her, with help from his two friends.

Ben's friends, Adam (John Hensley) and Bruno (David Denman), are killed by Megumi. After witnessing Bruno's death, Ben wants to leave but Jane hands Ben their wedding photo, which shows a distorted picture of Megumi. They realize she's been with them the entire time and go to Megumi's home, only to find her decayed body. She had committed suicide with potassium cyanide long before the car impact and thus they had actually first encountered her as a ghost at that time.

That night, Ben is tortured by Megumi. Jane screams at Megumi to leave them alone; Megumi stops with a brief sinister laugh, leaving Ben alive. After Megumi's funeral, Ben and Jane return to New York, thinking it's all over. However, Jane finds some recent photos in an envelope which show Megumi. With Megumi's clues, Jane finds a camera in a trunk and uploads the memory card into the laptop. There, Jane sees photos taken by Ben, showing Adam and Bruno raping Megumi before her suicide, while Ben does nothing but watch them doing the deed.

Ben returns home, where he tries to explain to a distraught Jane that he felt it was the only way to drive Megumi away. They had planned on using the pictures as blackmail against Megumi if she didn't leave him alone but it turned into rape. This explains why Megumi murdered Adam and Bruno, as Ben knew this was about revenge against all three of them. Believing that Megumi was trying to warn her, and disgusted by Ben's past actions, Jane concludes that she can't spend her life with someone like Ben so she leaves him. Ben tries to stop her, but Megumi locks the door and doesn't let him.

Driven mad by Megumi, Ben throws the camera across the room. It takes a picture of him, showing Megumi sitting astride his shoulders. Remembering his shoulder pains and the hospital where a nurse weighed Ben and it showed the weight of two people, Ben realizes that Megumi has been with him all along since her suicide without his knowledge. Horrified, and in an effort to rid himself of her, he electrocutes himself. He is rendered completely catatonic and sent to a mental institution, where he is shown sitting slumped over on the edge of his bed. The last scene shows Megumi still draped over his back.

Cast

Release

Critical reception

The film received generally negative reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 7% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 51 reviews.[4] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 37 out of 100, based on 12 reviews.

Commercial response

The film was released March 21, 2008 in the United States and Canada and grossed $10,447,559 in 2,753 theaters in its opening weekend, ranking #3 at the box office behind Horton Hears a Who!'s second weekend and Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns.[5] As of June 26, 2008, it has grossed a total of $47,879,410 worldwide – $25,928,550 in the United States and Canada and $21,950,860 in other territories.[6]

The film's $8 million budget and its almost $48 million worldwide grossing has secured the film as an extremely lucrative success.[7]

This film followed the Tamil remake Sivi, a flop, and preceded the Hindi remake CLICK, a Bollywood box-office disaster.

Home Media

Shutter was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 15, 2008. The Unrated Edition runs 5 minutes longer and includes commentary, featurettes, deleted scenes, and an alternate ending.

See also

Soundtrack

Shutter: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Film score by Nathan Barr
Released March 18, 2008
Label Lakeshore Records

Track listing

  1. "Welcome to Tokyo" – 1:55
  2. "We Hit a Girl!" – 2:58
  3. "TGK" – 1:37
  4. "Making Love" – 2:40
  5. "Alone in Tokyo" – 0:59
  6. "The Spirit Room" – 2:27
  7. "The Argument" – 3:05
  8. "Fly in the Eye" – 2:31
  9. "Visiting Murase" – 2:27
  10. "Jane Visits TGK" – 4:29
  11. "The Truth" – 1:54
  12. "I Saw Megumi" – 1:56
  13. "Driving to Megumi's" – 3:18
  14. "Rest in Peace" – 2:35
  15. "Flip Book" – 3:21
  16. "The Whole Truth" – 2:39
  17. "Psych Ward" – 1:02
  18. "Good to Me" (performed by Nathan Barr & Lesbeth Scott) – 3:23
Commercial songs from film, but not on soundtrack

Remakes

Shutter (2004)
(Thai) 		Sivi (2007)
(Tamil) 		Shutter (2008)
(English) 		Click (2010)
(Hindi) 		Photo (2006)
(Telugu)
Ananda Everingham Yogi Srinivasan Joshua Jackson Shreyas Talpade Anand
Natthaweeranuch Thongmee Anuja Iyer Rachael Taylor Sadha Anjali

References

  1. ↑ "Shutter (2008)". Logline. Retrieved 2009-01-05.
  2. ↑ "Shutter (2008)". Logline. Retrieved 2009-01-05.
  3. ↑ Thai horror remake Shutter gets release date, Film Junk; retrieved 2007-12-01
  4. ↑ "Shutter Movie Reviews, Pictures – Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  5. ↑ "Shutter (2008) – Weekend Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2008-05-12.
  6. ↑ "Shutter (2008)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2008-05-11.
  7. ↑ "Shutter (2008)". Logline. Retrieved 2009-01-05.
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