Review: Shutter

This remake of a 2004 Thai film is made well enough to run through a projector, but does little more than that. (For a better bad film about spirit photography, look for “The Asphyx” from 1972.) New York newlyweds Ben (Joshua Jackson) and Jane (Rachael Taylor) go to Tokyo. He worked as a photographer there before Jane entered the picture, so there are women in his workplace who know him well. That gives Jane something to do on their honeymoon: get jealous. One night, a sad Japanese woman materializes in the middle of the road. Jane hits her. Yet there are no dents. No blood, body or body parts. White wisps appear in the couple’s photographs. Sad-hit-by-rental-car woman (Megumi Okina) starts materializing in subway windows and other places that scare the shit out of Jane. Ben too. Even more so. Not me. Director Masayuki Ochiai and writer Luke Dawson manufacture a merely functional tale of a Japanese ghost getting revenge on some Americans. I figure you’re not going to see this waste of my time, so here’s what you’re not missing. Pre-Jane, Ben dumped a clingy Japanese woman. She took cyanide after his buddies drugged her and took sexually humiliating photos. Now she’s back to tip off Jane about Ben behaving badly. There’s one good idea in the last half minute of this film. We see the cause of Ben’s upper-back pain, which is also why the nurse in the doctor’s office looked at the scales that odd way when weighing him. The invisible ghost perched herself on his shoulders. With David Denman and John Hensley as the buddies who die badly. 85m. (Bill Stamets)