Review of Shutter (2008) by Chads. — 22 Mar 2008

She ain't heavy, she's my crazy ex-Japanese girlfriend. Benjamin(Joshua Jackson) has neck pains, and a past. He and his blushing bride aren't exactly the sharpest pencils in the box. Jane(Lisa Whelchel, I mean, Rachael Taylor) looks genuinely surprised that her hubbie's old girlfriend is in the same shape as Norman Bates' mother.

That's why they call it spirit photography, honey. Jane is either xenophobic, or stupid, or a stupid xenophobic. She wonders aloud if the Japanese eat ice cream. She also thinks the clothing that the woman she (not "we", Jane, YOU hit that pedestrian, not HE, your husband, who was asleep at the time) ran over was wearing clothing that seemed inappropriate(Jane, you're in JAPAN) at the time.

"Shutter" isn't scary, but that's because the film doesn't work very hard. It takes short cuts. At Benjamin's place of employment, Jane shows her ghostly photographs to Benjamin's assistant, whose ex-boyfriend just happens to be the editor of a spiritual photography magazine.

When "Shutter" isn't being scary, it's busy not being "Lost in Translation", too. Jane's walking tour of the Tokyo pavement recalls Scarlett Johannson in the Sofia Coppola movie.

Scarlett Johannson went to a Shintoist temple. Jane goes to a pachinko parlour, and takes a picture...of HERSELF! You'll shudder at "Shutter" with exasperation, not fright. But this will probably be the only chance you'll ever get to see an ex-cast member of "Dawson's Creek" speak Japanese.