American horror movies are great, but there is an apparent lack of original ideas. The biggest horror movie to come out this year will be “Prom Night,” a remake of the film that launched Jamie Lee Curtis’s career. “Shutter” falls into the other popular remake category. This category involves creating Americanized versions of popular Japanese horror films. Since the popularity of “The Ring,” producers have tried to cash in on this craze. This led to catastrophic remakes like “The Grudge” and reasonably intriguing films like “Dark Water.” The difference between the overall success of these films can be explained through two people; Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jennifer Connelly. Gellar took “The Grudge” into the garbage, yet Connelly turned “Dark Water” (a slow film) into a solid film. The female lead is the single most important aspect of the Japanese horror movie. Rachael Taylor is amazing as Jane Shaw (the female lead) and subsequently “Shutter” is enjoyable to watch.
“Shutter” is about a newlywed couple (Rachael Taylor and Joshua Jackson) spending the first few weeks of their marriage in Japan. When John Shaw (Jackson) and Jane Shaw first arrive in Japan, they get into an accident. Mr. Shaw is a photographer and Mrs. Shaw keeps seeing the victim’s image in her husband’s photos. From these photos an underlying story emerges and leads to Mrs. Shaw discovering the truth about the victim.
Rachael Taylor’s two previous big movies are “See No Evil,” which was a remake with an entertaining absurdity to it, and “Transformers.” She never made her presence felt in either movie. In “Shutter” Taylor’s body language and chemistry with co-star Joshua Jackson keeps viewers rooting for her safety. She is a sympathetic character and conveys an accurate portrayal of how a person might feel in a new country after a traumatic experience.
Hopefully Taylor becomes pigeonholed into horror roles because this section of the film industry is severely lacking in talented women. Her performance overshadowed Joshua Jackson’s abominable acting.
Who can forget Charlie Conway from “The Mighty Ducks” or Pacey from “Dawson’s Creek?” How does one actor play the lead role in an insanely popular children’s movie and play a major role in one of the biggest teen dramas of the late nineties, and become forgotten? This describes what happened to Jackson perfectly. “Shutter” displays how this phenomenon could have happened. Jackson can not act for a consistent period of time.
The first half of the movie he did an above average job, as a photographer struggling with a big photo shoot. As the dynamic of the story changed, Jackson never got the memo.
In the last half of the film he never seemed to be expressing the correct emotions. The scariest part of the film is ruined by his inability to convey fear properly. Another problem with the film came from the screenwriter.
The screenplay was written by Luke Dawson. This should not be that difficult because the movie did come out in 2003 in Japan meaning that the only thing that Dawson needed to do was make it American.
Instead, Dawson kept the movie in Japan. That’s fine and it never affected the film negatively, but this leaves Dawson with less to do. The lines that he wrote for Taylor and Jackson stayed consistently acceptable until the end.
The final 10 minutes of the movie ruined everything leading up to that point in the film. Dawson should not have been allowed to write the screenplay with his limited experience. He had only written one screenplay (that became a film) and the film was eighteen minutes long. With a seasoned writer, the lackluster finish to the film could have been avoided.
Rachael Taylor did amazing and hopefully will continue to do more horror movies. Do not expect anything from Joshua Jackson in this film or in the future.
The end is disappointing, but can be primarily blamed on Dawson. America needs to provide audiences with original horror movies, but, until then, an Americanized Japanese film is the best that audiences can expect.
Tom Pittman is a fourth year student majoring in psychology, with a minor in mathematics. He can be reached at TP623014@wcupa.edu.