37
Metascore
12 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghSurprisingly effective supernatural tale in which there's more to fear from the living than the dead.
- 63The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen ColeThe Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen ColeShutter has the look and feel of a proper J-horror film. Tokyo is seen as a series of gloomy gun metal skies. And the acting is more subdued than in Hollywood horror movies.
- 50Boston GlobeBoston GlobeIf Shutter is any indication, the reputation of professional photographers is still on the wane. Not only are photographs creepy, the film suggests, but so are photographers.
- 42The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe photography hook gives Shutter the potential to be a genuinely creepy ghosts-in-the-machine story like the original "Pulse," or better still, a horror twist on "Blowup." But one effective scene lit solely by a camera flash isn't enough to rescue this from the J-horror slushpile.
- 40The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckGenuine scares are few and far between, and the climactic explanation for the ghost's appearances comes as something less than a revelation.
- 40VarietyDennis HarveyVarietyDennis HarveyA blandly cast and crafted remake of the same-titled 2004 Thai pic that itself emulated J-horror norms, which seemed a lot fresher back then.
- The director, Masayuki Ochiai, conjures textbook J-horror miasma: clammy clinical interiors; overcast skies; diffuse cityscapes. He also gives Alfred Hitchcock a nod, with a sequence nakedly stolen from “Psycho,” and draws unease from Jane’s disorientation in a foreign city. Tokyo, in fact, may be the movie’s most fascinating player.
- 38San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco ChronicleFans of J-horror (for Japan, where the genre was born; its conventions have since spread to South Korea and Thailand) will find Shutter familiar; others may just doze.
- 30Village VoiceVillage VoiceOstensibly a remake of a Thai film--by a Japanese director with a Hollywood cast--this plays more like a video copy of "The Ring" that’s been so degraded that all the good bits are no longer visible.
- 25ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliAsian horror remakes are typically not screened for critics, and Shutter is no exception. The studios know what they have: watered-down, lifeless shells of motion pictures devoid of characters, drama, or anything remotely resembling horror.