Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: A married couple, staying in Japan, believes they are being haunted by a woman who disappeared after they ran her over.
Review: In a word: why? Although this isn't as disrespectful as the likes of that piece of shit "Halloween" remake, this movie was still utterly pointless. They don't do anything different with the material except move the setting to Japan. Again, why? Why not set it in Egypt or Russia or anywhere in the world? If you want all the characters to be Americans, then just set it in the USA. If you want to be faithful to the source, set it in Thailand; I don't get how Japan comes into play. Were they trying to offer up an Asian country audiences could wrap their minds around? The original movie didn't really have anything that screamed Thai-specific to me. I'm sure this won't bother a lot of people, but this is the root of the problem for me--it shows a lack of focus and some level of patronization to the audience.
So my dear Natre is gone and replaced by a girl named Megumi, played by the similarly named Megumi Okina. I'm not as annoyed by this alteration because at least Ms. Okina was Rika in "Ju-on: The Grudge." Not nearly as yummy as my Rika, of course, but, still, she's a known J-horror face. While I do buy Megumi as a Natre equivalent at a glance, she doesn't have virtually any makeup effects applied. Fine, they made her a little paler, wow, amazing. Natre looked like something out of a hellish nightmare--Megumi's ghost form could pass for a living person. Also, Megumi wasn't as clingy as Natre since most of her emotional problems stemmed from her father's death rather than being a social outcast. Lastly, taking the characters out of the college setting makes the rape less believable since these people are supposed to be business professionals at an office party?! That's a good one.
As for the rest of the cast, it's comprised of mostly non-Japanese people. Seriously, again with this?! Oh for the love of fuck. I'll give you an idea of how dumb this is: the Tun equivalent, Ben, has a friend that is implied to be a womanizer. When Megumi kills this guy, he's trying to screw, what appears to be, some Australian girl. Come on, son! Speaking of Benny-boy, this guy lived in Japan, seemingly banged a lot of chicks, dated Megumi, and, yet, came home and married the Jane character all in the span of like two years? Right. I will cut Joshua Jackson, who plays Ben, a little slack since he appeared to learn a moderate amount of Japanese for the role.
The story still plays out the same though with practically the same scares. I don't understand the point of remaking this if you're going to take that route. Either you want to localize the story...which they didn't, or you want to work with the material and make it different...which they didn't. One noticeable difference was that this movie takes significantly longer to get rolling; they still don't know who Megumi really is until the movie is more than half over. They did, however, make a slight change toward the ending in the most idiotic of ways. Everything about the decision making for this film baffles me. They did watch the original, right? They didn't just read wikipedia? The only thing this movie honestly did better was use superior film quality. I wouldn't even say the production value was higher since the original applied more effort and had ingenuity on their side.
I really just hate this movie, and it's yet another in a long list of movies I do not ever want to see again. It has no reason to exist and forces me to refer to "Shutter" not by its title alone but as "the original." I don't like doing that. In fact, I hate having to clarify a distinction in general when it comes to other shit remakes. This film is inferior in almost every single respect compared to, the one and true, "Shutter." Why anyone would waste their time with this trash is beyond me, but I cannot say with enough emphasis to simply watch the original.
Notable Moment: When Ben decides to inexplicably electrocute himself to death for whatever reason. Yeah...anything for the lulz I suppose.
Final Rating: 4/10
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