March 21, 2008

"Shutter" Movie is a classic ghost story of unrequited love

By Stan Dyer

Who does not love a good ghost story? They are especially nice when they begin innocently enough, but end with a slight, macabre twist. "Shutter" does all that and more. It is a remake of movie I never saw, so I cannot comment on the originality, but it will definitely lull you into complacency, set you up, and then finish off you with a bold, slap in the face.

It is the story of newlyweds, Ben and Jane Shaw. Ben is a professional photographer who takes his wife with him to a job in Japan on their honeymoon. While driving in the mountain country of Japan on their way to a hideaway cabin, Jane believes she runs over a Japanese woman who happened to be crossing a deserted road in the middle of the night. Unlike in the movie, "I know what you did last Summer", this couple does everything right, including calling the police, but they are unable to locate any trace of the unfortunate pedestrian, not even her body.

While at the cabin, the photographer takes some honeymoon pictures that later develop with odd, white discolorations. Later, while Ben is on the job, the discolorations start showing up in his professional work, and the images are more and more clear. The images are that of the same woman they hit on the road earlier. She keeps haunting them like that hitchhiker in the episode of "The Twilight Zone", who keeps asking, "Going my way?", but it is unclear exactly why she chooses to harass the couple. Jane happens to see an article in a magazine about "spirit photography" and decides to do some investigation on her own.

She learns that images of ghosts have appeared on film ever since the infancy of photography in the 1800's. There are many fakes, and many who make money off fakes, but some are very real, and there are many Japanese who believe strongly in the ghostly images and life after death. One important thing we learn is that ghost images cannot be faked on Polaroid cameras because there is no negative.

Jane uses this knowledge about Polaroid cameras and some deductive reasoning to uncover the identity of the woman she hit on the road. As it turns out, her husband knows the woman, and her name is Megumi Tanaka. She is one of his ex-girlfriends, a fling that did not end nicely. Megumi fell hard and fast for Ben, but he never shared her romantic enthusiasm, just her bed. He tried to break it off with her, but she kept following him and turning up wherever he went. At this time, Ben tells his wife that his friends, Bruno and Adam, spoke to the girl on his behalf, she left, and they never saw her again. Well, she is back now, they are seeing her, and she refuses to go away. At this point, I am going to reveal the twist at the end. If you do not want to know the ending, stop here and go see the movie. If you want to know the ending, read on.

The ghost of Megumi plays a significant role in the untimely and gruesome deaths of Ben's friends, Bruno and Adam. Ben and Jane decide to put an end to this once and for all. Convinced that Megumi is still alive, Ben and Jane seek her out for a little heart to heart. They travel to her home just outside of the city and knock on the door. No one answers. Unimpeded, they go inside and start looking around. They discover the lifeless body of Megumi in a scene reminiscent of the finding mother scene in "Psycho", and learn that she committed suicide with Potassium Cyanide. There is a funeral for the girl, and you are lead to believe that the story is over and the ghost is appeased. Not quite yet.

The couple head back for the states and try to leave the bad memories behind in Japan. Megumi has other ideas. She follows them to the states and leads Jane to discover a camera with some revealing film on it. Jane shows the pictures, which happen to be of Megumi with his friends Bruno and Adam, to her husband and asks for an explanation. Ben comes clean and tells her about the little plot he and his friends devised to get Megumi to leave him alone.

Long before he was married, Ben lured Megumi into his room as if he intended to make up. Instead, he drugged her drink. Bruno and Adam then pulled the helpless Megumi down on the bed while Ben took naughty pictures that he intended to use to blackmail her to stay away. If she did not stay away, friends, family and co-workers would see the pictures. The scheme went too far. Bruno and Adam ended up raping Megumi and that, combined with her unrequited love, lead to her suicide. Her ghost was definitely back for vengeance, but, not even in death, could she give up on her man, the love of her life.

Jane cannot believe the man she married could be so cruel and ends up walking out on him. Ben becomes upset and uses the Polaroid to find Megumi and finally end this haunting. In an accidental snapshot, Ben discovers that Megumi has been with him throughout the movie, sitting on his shoulders, (which also explains why he has been having chronic, inexplicable neck pain throughout). Frustrated, Ben attempts a suicide of his own, but is unsuccessful. The movie ends with Ben, in a hospital in a semi-vegetative state with Megumi's ghost still clinging to her man.

I rate this movie an "A". It starts out slowly, but, just when you start to believe it is just another cheap, rip-off of other movies, the director ties everything in. In a nice use of foreshadowing, the director plants small, seemingly insignificant seeds throughout the movie that all sprout in the end revealing a story nicely done. The acting is good, the direction is good, and the film work is good. It is also a nice, but small glimpse of life in Japan and some of the beautiful country there. This is a good movie that reminds one of similar stories told around the campfire during childhood, or of certain urban legends we hear from time to time. People will certainly talk about this film.

Just the facts:

Title: Shutter

Director: Masayuki Ochiai

Rating: PG-13, Genre: Horror, Run Time: 1:25

Cast: Joshua Jackson as Ben Shaw, Rachel Taylor as Jane Shaw, Megumi Okina as Megumi Tanaka, David Denman as Bruno and John Hensley as Adam.

(Author's Note: If you want to check out spirit photography for yourselves, visit these websites: www.ghoststudy.com and www.callingallghosts.com I am sure most are fakes, but they are still kind of interesting.)