Representing Thailand: Shutter (2004)

From http://www.loyvideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Shutter2004.jpg

Dirs. Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom

To think ten years ago in the noughties, Asian ghost stories in cinema were an obsession for the genre, both in the films made in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and, with this film, Thailand, and all those English remakes. Ghost stories are still being made, but the trend has passed. I want to claim it was when The Eye remake (2008) with Jessica Alba vanishes from our consciousnesses after its cinema release, but even as the remake fad of those films finally died out there were still remnants being wringed out. If I'm permitted to reference old podcasts I listen to again, paying lip service to Mondo Movies for another time, I'm reminded of how one of the presenters said these films eventually descended down into random objects being possessed by evil than actual tension - "eck, it's in the walls!", "No, it's in the water!", "Oh, it's in my eyes!". Unfortunately Shutter, with its camera motif, doesn't provide evidence against this point in its existence.

From http://www.fantastique-arts.com/photos/2062.jpg

One night a couple, a man and woman, believe they've ran over a woman on a night-time drive home from a celebration. When its revealed that no one has been found afterwards, it becomes clear that the boyfriend is being haunted by a ghost of a young woman who keeps appearing in photographs. As it continues, this haunting reveals more of him than his girlfriend ever knew. For Western viewers, this type of horror cinema began with Hideo Nakata's Ringu (1998), a great start for the boom that begun. It was very much of its home country and of Asia. Unlike the West where religion has dipped in social influence and ghosts are an abstract idea, or in programmes where people sit in dark rooms about to scream when they feel the wind on their shoulders, spirituality is still significant and spirits of the dead still linger with those mortally alive. But it could be understood easily in the West regardless - ghosts are still scary even if we only view them through cable TV programming - and could be remade as PG-13 material for the ticket money of young adolescents. But Ringu is not a succession of jump scares tied around somewhat of a plot. It was mood, oppressive dank atmosphere, sombre drama which, when it went to the horror scenes, chilled the spine, the idea of the dead being on your mind for your ordinary lives disturbing when you encounter a malevolent ones. Shutter is from another country, Thailand, with its own cultural marks on it, but that doesn't excuse that its only sense of horror is a succession of uninteresting jump scares, a flaw that is understandable in any language.

From http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-trK67CNVeV4/UQ5IX4A9cOI/AAAAAAAAFm0/5RubotnbDps
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It suggests something interesting, like many films, that when you investigate past the surface, behind the bookshelf or in certain images, you will see secrets of another person you never considered being tangible with them. This film even juggles having a segment with a paranormal magazine that doctors fake ghost photographs with a conceit suggesting certain types of photos will be always legitimate. But Shutter is such a dull film. The story, full of dark secrets, is not interesting, and being scary is not possible when you do jump scares continually and use obvious ones repeated from other movies. Neither does it help that, if you are not engaged with a film, the mechanism of a jump scare, pulling you in them making you jump, doesn't work then on that viewer. Neither does it look visually interesting for a ghost story like this to work. Shutter ultimately contributes nothing of real interesting beyond the basics and maybe a joke that suddenly happens in a men's bathroom. No oppressive mood, no cultural details aside from a scrap of things, nothing that distresses or creeps you out. It's an average rollercoaster wrapped around an uninspired mortality drama, even squandering the photography idea it carries in its potential. Shutter was only made in 2004, but suggests this subgenre was already in danger of falling back into obscurity that early on. 

From http://horrorsnotdead.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/shutter-32.jpg