If there’s any Thai horror movie that has received worldwide acclaim for being a certified terrifying watch, that movie’s Shutter. Or so I heard. This 2004 film directed by Parkpoom Wongpoom and Banjong Pisanthanakun has always made me ask: what is it in Shutter that makes it stand out among all the other Asian horror films?
After watching the film about an hour and a half, I found myself answering this exact same question.
The Plot
As Tun (played by Ananda Everingham) and Jane (played by Natthaweeranuch Thongmee) are on their way home in their car, they accidently run into something dark in the road. Apparently, they hit a woman—and just as Jane is about to go out to check the casualty, Tun insists on driving away.
After this, weird and spooky things begin to happen. Tun, a photographer, begins experiencing back pains, which becomes more and more severe. Odd figures and shapes appear in Tun’s photos. Jane begins to suspect that these are spirits trying to tell them something. This happens for quite some time, until Jane finally decides to approach a tabloid publication that specializes in ghosts in photos. The reporter shows them an album of ghost photos, enough to for Jane to finally launch herself into a search for the spirits in Tun’s photos.
Not long after, Jane realizes that the ghost is Natre, a former lover of her current boyfriend, Tun. She is a nice and shy girl who committed suicide, supposedly because Tun no longer had feelings for her. When Jane visits the house of Natre’s family, her mother leads her to a room that contains Natre’s decaying body—one of the creepiest scenes in the film, if you ask me. One by one, Tun’s friends die. Tun, however, roughly escapes death after he jumps from a building.
The naïve Jane arranges a proper funeral for the girl and, together with Tun, goes back to Beijing. Just when you thought that the film is finished, Jane discovers something. Apparently, Natre was raped by Tun and his friends. This prompts her to leave Tun. Tun, frustrated, throws away the camera and the shutter—which is the culmination of the film’s title—begins to snap photos. It reveals a photo of Tun with Natre sitting on her back: a convenient explanation of why Tun has been experiencing back pains.
And guess what? Tun and Natre ends up together in a mental facility and lives unhappily ever after.
Asian Horror at its Best
After watching the movie, I finally realized what made this movie so popular. Not only did it have a frightening music background in all scenes, it also dealt with a very personal issue we are all familiar with: ghosts in photos. We’ve all had this hair-raising experience of having taken photos that had odd shadows or white shapes in it. Shutter uses all our experiences and builds a very good story out of it. Good enough for you to scream one time too many, that is.
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