Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Spikeopath American remakes of Asian horror films have mostly struggled to win grace and favour with horror fans. Shutter is no exception, it has been met with the usual howls of derision, claims of it being pointless, losing the horror essence of the original and etc. But what for someone like me who hasn't seen the original?I found Shutter to be much like how I found The Ring, the Naomi Watts starrer from 2002, a very effective chiller with a solid mystery to be unravelled at the core. The ghost is creepy – as are the various photographic links, the scares handled professionally by the makers, and the finale pays off with a startlingly chilling revelation that freaked me out; and I'm a middle aged man!It's far from perfect, the pace is a bit haphazard, logic goes out the window often, and cast performances are only adequate in the absence of "A" list stars to propel the story onwards. While it's tough to hang your hat on the two principal players since the emotional empathy hasn't been earned by them, courtesy of the writing. Yet with no frame of reference to raise expectation levels – or down them as well, this is a safe and sturdy spooker that does its job well enough. 7/10

krycek19 The first hour of Shutter is down-right boring. Nothing happens except from the car-crash and a few short images of Megumi, the girl they hit with their car.But the last 30 minutes are horror at its best. The actress playing Megumi, who is also named Megumi in real life, but with a different last name that they hit are truly scary looking. And there are many disturbing images that will stay with me for a while after watching this movie.The ending is really creepy.The only thing that is a let down is the acting of Rachael Taylor. She is never convincing and the way she leaves her husband before he finds out the truth about him and Megumi, would never happen in real life.Also considering what he did to Megumi it seems strange he kept not only the camera she gave him, but also the memory-card with the photos that could send him to jail. But that was necessary for the ending.But that's okay, considering the scares are really good.

Jimmy Collins Shutter is a rather different remake than the usual Japanese to American horror, it has a pace which is just cracking, it's speeds along very fast but smoothly, one thing I dislike is when a film takes too long to get going and it lags but this movie doesn't waste any time in telling the story. American remakes of Asian film can either be really good or really bad, this is a good one, in lots of ways, the first being the excellent central performance by Rachael Taylor, Australia's newest up and comer. This film was made a few years and it was before I knew anything about Rachael Taylor but recently I have seen her in quite a bit of stuff and I have to say she has a great screen presence, she is wonderful in Shutter and pretty much everything else she's in.Josh Jackson is pretty standard as the boyfriend with a bit of a secret, I mean his role could have been played by anyone but yeah he's also pretty good. The story is a cool one which made me google spirit photography afterwards, when horror film come out they have to have something different about them, not enough of them do and they suffer because of it. The story unfolds in a mish mash of photos and horror images and the twists that come out towards the end are ones I didn't see coming.All in all I just found this movie to be far superior to so many others, it just has something the others don't, I can't put my finger on it but it just does. Horror fans should enjoy this a lot and I would recommend it to people who like something a bit different, yes it's pretty tame and could be a lot scarier but it doesn't out stay it's welcome at all. Check it out people, and discover the great actress Miss Taylor.

Stephan Quinland Good story and surprisingly well-made. Suspense built slowly and seemed in hand of competent director and actors. Film was in 3 takes. The introduction, the main play, and surprisingly the post episode was genuinely frightful. There was a moral ending instead of senseless chop-em-up flicks. The cast was perfect. Rachel Taylor was a good actress and very believable as the young wife of photographer Ben. The Japan outdoor scenery were breath-taking. Only complaint - the Japanese women were shown and treated as objects; and the women seemed amendable to playing that role. Maybe that's reflecting the cultural norm in Japan. Otherwise a good movie night if you want enough scares.