Shutter (PG-13, 2008)

Bad things always seem to happen to unsuspecting blonde girls when they head East in remakes of Asian Extreme horror movies. SHUTTER -- a remake of a 2004 Thai movie -- is no exception, focusing on the haunting of Jane (Rachael Taylor) by a young Japanese woman's ghost. At first Jane thinks she killed Megumi (Megumi Okina) when she hit her with a car, but she can't convince her photographer husband, Ben (Joshua Jackson), that the accident even happened. It's a rough start to their honeymoon in Tokyo; soon Jane -- a plucky American feeling alienated in the city's crowded streets and neon signage -- starts investigating on her own. And when white blurs start appearing in Ben's photos, Jane researches "spirit photos," which an expert tells her show "strong emotions making themselves heard."

Shifting the location to Tokyo and setting Caucasian stars against a Japanese ghost (the original features all Thai characters) changes the movie's haunting dynamic. On one level it's yet another instance of a white woman stalked by a vengeful Asian ghost. But on another, as Jane comes to understand the reasons for Megumi's anger, the women realize a shared grievance premised on gender imbalance and sexual abuses. It's hardly revolutionary for a scary movie to have a Caucasian woman wandering frightened through Tokyo, harassed by some supernatural phenomenon. But Shutter is almost perversely upfront in connecting privileged, self-justifying Caucasian men with the problem at its core.

And yet, despite this potential complexity, the movie lapses repeatedly into tired conventions. The "scares" are bloody but not very clever, the plot increasingly silly. In part this is a function of lapses in the script, as explanatory scenes pop up in strange places and a voiceover fills in for scenes missing altogether. Jane's plucky resilience makes her sympathetic, and when at last she literally leaves the movie before its end, you admire her sudden good judgment and wish her well.

Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
Director: Masayuki Ochiai
Cast: Joshua Jackson, Megumi Okina, Rachael Taylor
Genre: Horror
Run time: 85 minutes
Theatrical release: March 21, 2008
DVD release: July 14, 2008
MPAA Rating: PG-13
MPAA explanation: terror, disturbing images, sexual content and language.