Shutter

Surprisingly effective supernatural tale in which there's more to fear from the living than the dead.

If Shutter is any indication, the reputation of professional photographers is still on the wane. Not only are photographs creepy, the film suggests, but so are photographers.

If Shutter is any indication, the reputation of professional photographers is still on the wane. Not only are photographs creepy, the film suggests, but so are photographers.

Seems like a technological regression.

Seems like a technological regression.

A blandly cast and crafted remake of the same-titled 2004 Thai pic that itself emulated J-horror norms, which seemed a lot fresher back then.

The director, Masayuki Ochiai, conjures textbook J-horror miasma: clammy clinical interiors; overcast skies; diffuse cityscapes. He also gives Alfred Hitchcock a nod, with a sequence nakedly stolen from "Psycho," and draws unease from Jane's disorientation in a foreign city. Tokyo, in fact, may be the movie's most fascinating player.

The director, Masayuki Ochiai, conjures textbook J-horror miasma: clammy clinical interiors; overcast skies; diffuse cityscapes. He also gives Alfred Hitchcock a nod, with a sequence nakedly stolen from “Psycho,” and draws unease from Jane’s disorientation in a foreign city. Tokyo, in fact, may be the movie’s most fascinating player.

Fans of J-horror (for Japan, where the genre was born; its conventions have since spread to South Korea and Thailand) will find Shutter familiar; others may just doze.

Ostensibly a remake of a Thai film--by a Japanese director with a Hollywood cast--this plays more like a video copy of "The Ring" that's been so degraded that all the good bits are no longer visible.