Shutter (2004)
Shutter | 3.5/5
Written by Noah Dietz: 2/15/2025
For the past two years I have been passively searching for a specific horror film. I know it has to do with photography, and it might have had a Polaroid camera in it. Unfortunately, that’s all I’ve been able to remember about it. I’ve thought multiple times that I had finally figured it out, but everything was just not quite it. Over the course of my search, I’d landed on Shutter.
Shutter is not the film I had been searching for, but that didn’t stop me from watching the American remake of it by accident last year. It was capital F fine, but with the number of reviews mentioning it didn’t hold a candle to the original, I was left wondering how much better this might be.
Shutter opens on a couple going home after spending a night with friends. While driving, they accidentally hit a woman and flee the scene of the accident. Over the next few weeks it seems to be business as usual for the two, though Jane (Natthaweeranuch Thongmee) has been taking it much worse than her boyfriend, Tun (Ananda Everingham), since she was the one who had been driving.
Tun seems to be handling the event well, though his photography career has been giving him some issues. There are faces appearing in his work, along with large blurs that could potentially be light exposure from a broken camera. Tun is concerned, but seems disinterested in looking into things much deeper. Jane, on the other hand, is being directly haunted by the girl they hit. She takes matters into her own hands and spends most of the film looking into what is happening to them.
The atmosphere of the film is interesting. The soundtrack is minimal, relying on the seemingly fine, well-lit world to convey the mood. On a surface level most things appear to be normal, though there are plenty of elements that add to the unease our leads are dealing with. Movement in the backgrounds, objects shifting, and blur after blur appearing in the photos. On that, Tun’s career as a photographer gives us some fun set pieces—a highlight taking place in his studio space when all lights go out, pierced by an occasional camera flash revealing only brief glimpses of Tun … and the spirit haunting him.
All in all, the angle of the haunting is a compelling one, with the way the end plays out leaving most viewers pleased. It doesn’t feel too contrived, and if you’ve managed to avoid learning how the ending plays out, I think you’ll enjoy it. If you have access to this film, check it out! It’s far superior to the 2008 American remake, and worth looking into on its own merit.