Shutter

I had high hopes for this film as it is part of the Netflix focus on spooky flicks that they do every year, obviously, for Halloween. The idea that ghosts can only appear in pictures and are haunting and following a few people is an interesting idea for a film but ultimately, it ended up being kind of blasé.

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I'm always a little apprehensive when a film boasts that such and such person produced a film because this is completely different than if someone directed or wrote it. I don't know exactly how much influence a producer actually has on a film but from what I have read and seen they seem to be involved in more of a financial sense than a creative one. I could be wrong about that but there are plenty of bad films out there that touted a producer's name in the past.

It should surprise no one that this film is actually a USA remake of a Thai film and of course a lot of the people came out and said that the remake didn't do the original film justice. This is expected, critics have always said the same things about movies based on books as well. This movie is one of the lowest ranked movies on RT and I only found this out after watching it.

It turned a relatively good profit despite being originally released far before Halloween in a move that looked as though they were aiming for a summer release in cinemas and then a Spooktober release on DVD. That's just my guess anyway.

The story is that a newlywed family moves to Japan for a wonderful job opportunity for photographer husband Ben Shaw. His wife Jane (really inventive names guys) comes along to support her husband and they end up in a rather awesome Tokyo apartment that conveniently has some rather eerie lower floors.

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Strange things start happening in their apartment and just in life in general and this is especially noticed in the images of ghouls that start to appear in all of Ben's pictures that he is being paid to make. It actually is starting to ruin his career as well as he doesn't understand why his shots are being ruined by things that he can not see while he is there in person.

Through some trickery they end up encountering someone that of course knows that it is a spirit and the only way you can spot them when they are around you is if you use a polaroid camera so that you can see the images right away. I don't know why they didn't just use digital because that certainly existed in 2008... I guess they needed it to take longer for the image to show up or maybe the ghosts can only be captured on actual film.

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There are more things than just the way that this story is handled from a realism point of view that bothered me about it. For one thing, I hate it when they take foreign actors to another country and then try to pretend as though they can speak Japanese when they clearly can't. Rather than having a voice actor talk at Ben's back on his behalf with him occasionally nailing a few lines of Japanese dialogue how about just admit that there aren't really any white people that speak Japanese fluently? What is even more annoying is when people speak Japanese to Ben and he just nods in understanding and then responds in English.

Just do it in English guys! It's annoying to pretend about something that is clearly not the case.

Should I watch it?

I think I agree with the consensus online that this film shouldn't have been remade. It would have been better if they had just released the original film with subtitles. People refer to it as "another lame Asian horror remake" and I agree with this. I can't think of a single Asian film that has been remade in the US that was even close to as good as the original and this is another one of those. It doesn't matter to me who the producers are, this one didn't hold my interest and I simply found myself annoyed during most of it.

If the concept interests you, I would say seek out the Thai original. It doesn't have the budget of this one (which wasn't really even that much) but at least you skip all the irritating crap like pretending language barriers don't exist.

Hola de nuevo! Hoy les traigo un post súper genial, aprovechando este mes de Halloween para hacer una pequeña reseña de una de mis películas de terror favoritas la cual es El fotógrafo. Hace un tiempo hice un post enlistando las películas de terror que más me asustaron, y quisiera hacer algunas reseñas de las que nombré ya que el mes del terror es perfecto para una maratón de películas de este género. Recuerdo que la primera vez que la vi fue con un grupo de amigos a los 16 años, donde estábamos buscando algo de miedo y la verdad, no nos decepcionó e incluso tuve que obligar a una amiga para que durmiera conmigo esa noche porque estaba realmente asustada. La volví a ver hace relativamente poco y la verdad me causó una sensación similar que hace 8 años ya que de por sí soy miedosa, pero aún así me gusta el género, por lo que les hablaré sobre esta película de terror asiática, comencemos!

Hello again! Today I come with a super cool post, taking advantage of this Halloween month to do a little review of one of my favorite horror movies which is The Photographer. A while ago I did a post listing the horror movies that scared me the most, and I would like to do some reviews of the ones I named since the month of horror is perfect for a movie marathon of this genre. I remember the first time I saw it was with a group of friends when I was 16, where we were looking for something scary and truth be told, it didn't disappoint and I even had to force a friend to sleep with me that night because she was really scared. I watched it again relatively recently and the truth is that it caused me a similar sensation than 8 years ago since I'm already scared, but I still like the genre, so I'll tell you about this Asian horror movie, let's go!

Esta película es tailandesa estrenada en 2004, dirigida por Banjong Pisanthanakun y Parkpoom Wongpoom, siendo una de las películas más exitosas del género de terror en ese país, también una de las más taquilleras del mismo. Fue adaptada como remake en el año 2008 en Estado Unidos pero no le hace para nada de justicia a la versión original. Esta película ha marcado pauta para otras del mismo género, sobre todo en Asia donde en mi opinión hacen las mejores películas de horror. Obviamente parece cliché al comienzo porque trata de espíritus, uno que otro grito que te toma por sorpresa y además, el espíritu tiene la misma apariencia que otros que hemos visto en otras películas, pero en este caso cuentan la historia de manera que te sientas en la misma tensión que el protagonista a lo largo del desarrollo, tiene muchos más pros que contras y por algo la considero una de las películas que más miedo me ha dado.

This is a Thai film released in 2004, directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, being one of the most successful films of the horror genre in that country, also one of the highest grossing of the same. It was adapted as a remake in 2008 in the United States but it does not do justice to the original version at all. This film has set the standard for others of the same genre, especially in Asia where in my opinion they make the best horror films. Obviously it seems cliché at first because it deals with spirits, one or another scream that takes you by surprise and also, the spirit has the same appearance as others we have seen in other films, but in this case they tell the story so that you feel in the same tension as the protagonist throughout the development, it has many more pros than cons and for something I consider it one of the movies that has given me more fear.

La trama comienza con una pareja los cuales son Jane y el fotógrafo Tun, que luego de una fiesta atropellan accidentalmente a una chica para luego darse a la fuga, dejando a la joven moribunda. El chico luego de revelar sus fotografías nota unas manchas extrañas en las mismas, y la novia intuye que puede ser el espíritu de la joven que atropellaron. Descubren la chica fue una antigua novia de Tun y que al dejarla, amenazaba con suicidarse. Él precensia en suicidio de uno de su amigos y se entera de otros más, por lo que está seguro que él será uno de ellos. A partir de aquí descubrimos cosas sumamente perturbadoras, como cuando visitan a la madre de Natre (la chica), hechos que ocurren cuando se enfrentan al espíritu y la razón real por la que el espíritu desea vengarse (capaz sea un spoiler para los que no han visto la película, pero me parece una razón sumamente razonable). Hablar más sería dar spoilers de todo lo que sucede, ya que la trama se enfoca mucho en como sufren los personajes gracias al espíritu de la chica, lo cual nos pone en constante suspenso de lo que podría suceder después y como algún hecho del pasado puede hacerte sufrir luego de cierto tiempo. Me llamó mucho la atención el giro de trama que toma la película en un momento dado, dejándonos sorprendidos, por lo que aunque dé miedo recomiendo mucho verla.

The plot begins with a couple, Jane and photographer Tun, who after a party accidentally run over a girl and then run away, leaving the young woman dying. The boy, after developing his photographs, notices some strange stains on them, and the girlfriend intuits that it could be the spirit of the girl they ran over. They discover the girl was an old girlfriend of Tun's and that when he left her, she threatened to commit suicide. He witnesses the suicide of one of his friends and learns of others, so he is sure that he will be one of them. From here on we discover some very disturbing things, like when they visit Natre's mother (the girl), events that happen when they face the spirit and the real reason why the spirit wants revenge (it might be a spoiler for those who haven't seen the movie, but it seems to me a very reasonable reason). To talk more would be to give spoilers of everything that happens, since the plot focuses a lot on how the characters suffer thanks to the girl's spirit, which puts us in constant suspense of what could happen next and how some event in the past can make you suffer after a certain time. I was very struck by the plot twist that the film takes at a given moment, leaving us surprised, so even if it is scary I highly recommend watching it.

En cuanto a la ambientación posee una banda sonora que puede pasar desapercibida pero no es así, nos ayuda a que psicológicamente nos adentremos más al terror que quiere transmitir la película, cosa que realmente funciona. La paleta de colores sumamente fría lo que también colabora que dé una sensación de tensión constante, además de nos dan escenas tipo "screamers" de las cuales no nos preparan. Comienza algo floja pero nos logra enganchar a lo largo que se desarrolla la historia, además de que toquen el tema de fotografías aunadas con espíritus nos hace no querer tomarnos fotos o al menos no detallarlas mucho para no caer en paranoia, por lo menos eso me pasó a mí la primera vez que la vi. Algo en lo que destacan las películas de terror orientales es en dar más suspenso que trama que personalmente no lo considero algo totalmente negativo ya que cumplen el objetivo de dar miedo, sin embargo aunque esta película no tenga una historia sumamente destaclable, se le da mérito que la historia sea algo original ya que las razones del espíritu para cobrar venganza son hasta razonables por lo que sufrió en vida. Creo que esta película aunque muchas veces caiga en el cliché del género, merece una oportunidad para ser vista por los amantes del terror al ser una de las más conocidas.

As for the setting, it has a soundtrack that can go unnoticed but it is not, it helps us to psychologically go deeper into the terror that the film wants to convey, which really works. The color palette is extremely cold, which also helps to give us a feeling of constant tension, in addition to giving us scenes like "screamers" for which we are not prepared. It starts off a bit weak but manages to hook us as the story unfolds, plus the fact that they touch on the theme of photographs coupled with spirits makes us not want to take pictures or at least not detail them too much to avoid falling into paranoia, at least that happened to me the first time I saw it. Something in which oriental horror movies stand out is in giving more suspense than plot, which personally I do not consider something totally negative since they fulfill the objective of being scary, however, although this film does not have an extremely remarkable story, it is worth mentioning that the story is somewhat original since the reasons of the spirit to take revenge are even reasonable for what he suffered in life. I think this film, although it often falls into the cliché of the genre, deserves a chance to be seen by horror lovers as it is one of the best known.

Espero que les haya gustado este post! Esta película es una de las mejores que he visto del género del terror, a pesar de que a veces caiga en lo monótono del género posee una historia sumamente interesante y giros de tramas que sorprenden a cualquiera. Quisiera saber si alguna vez vieron esta película o si les interesó verla, házmelo saber!

Les mando un abrazo y nos vemos en el próximo post!

I hope you liked this post! I wanted to tell you about the things I hope you liked this post! This movie is one of the best I've seen in the horror genre, although it sometimes falls into the monotonous genre has a very interesting story and plot twists that surprise anyone. I would like to know if you have ever seen this movie or if you are interested in watching it, let me know!

I send you a hug and I'll see you in the next post

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