SHUTTER (2008)
(Review)

Before we get to the main attraction, I feel that going over my review for the original Shutter (contained in the Archive), would better illuminate some of the comments I’ll be making about the English-language redux.
So, if you haven’t yet read it, it’s the first entry in the Iguana’s irregular series, “In The Interests of All Things Recyclable.”
And if you’ve already read it…

Benjamin Shaw (Dawson’s Creek’s Joshua Jackson, soon to be seen on J.J. Abrams’ latest TV salvo, the much anticipated Fringe) and his brand new wife Jane (Transformers’ Rachael Taylor) are honeymooning in Japan, when an apparent accident kicks off the supernatural goings-on of the film, occurrences which springboard from the spectral trappings of the world of spirit photography.
As early as the initial set-up, the remake takes the original’s basic premise, and executes its own alterations in an attempt to improve upon Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom’s effort.

Fortunately, this outing actually improves upon the problematic characters found in the original. Here, the male lead comes across as a far more sympathetic character when it counts, keeping the audience suitably occupied and interested, and perhaps more crucially, the female lead is actually written as a definable entity, as opposed to the plot appendage she seems to be in the original.
Jackson and Taylor also submit serviceable, if not particularly distinguished performances, thus making the proceedings passably engaging.
However, while the choice of making the Jane character a more pro-active force in the narrative reinforces the whole, that improvement seems to remain a largely theoretical victory.


The problem, I feel, still remains that, as with the original, this Shutter’s script (by Luke Dawson) isn’t the tight, tense little animal it should be. And the scares—again, as with its Thai progenitor—aren’t as potent as I’d hoped they would be.
Having said that though—and despite the fact that some of the original’s scares are far more noteworthy than their equivalents here—this is, I believe, the first time where a case can be made to argue that the English-language remake plays better than the Asian horror original.
Yes, it’s still a sometimes stuttering affair, but the characters and central mystery depicted here are more plausible and make more narrative sense than those in the original.
And not only is it better than director Masayuki Ochiai’s previous efforts, Parasaito Ivu (Parasite Eve) and Kansen (Infection), it’s also better than this year’s other Asian horror reduxes, Eric Vallete‘s One Missed Call and David Moreau and Xavier Palud’s The Eye.

Ultimately, Ochiai’s Shutter is an intermittently effective horror film that, perhaps, would have played better for me if I was unfamiliar with the original.
Still, it’s a fairly enjoyable ride, and there are far worse out there (like Vallete’s One Missed Call).
So, give it a (heh) shot, if you’re so inclined.

Parting shot: Reviews of the original Shutter, the English-language remakes of One Missed Call and The Eye, as well as Transformers and Cursed (in which Jackson also appeared), can be found in the Archive.

(Shutter OS courtesy of joblo.com; images courtesy of filmz.ru.)

THE EYE
(Review)

First, a few words regarding my thoughts on the Pang Brothers’ original Khon Hen Phi.
Though it did have its moments, I have two main problems with it.
One: there were several stretches of the film where the tension was not quite at a level that could sustain the narrative and maintain my interest in the on-screen proceedings.
Two: that climax seemed rather jarring given all the largely low-key bits that had come before it. I always considered that sequence a little too Hollywood a capper for this otherwise very Asian horror film.
So it seemed rather appropriate that an English-language remake would spring into being. And though I was looking forward to it when Hideo Nakata’s name was floating around the property, it eventually fell into the laps of French directing duo, David Moreau and Xavier Palud. Now, their Ils (Them) grabbed enough of my attention to at the very least warrant my interest in their redux, so it was with, what I termed in my Ils review (located in the Archive), “a healthy sense of anticipation,” that I approached The Eye.
What I got was a mixed bag: though The Eye has, like its predecessor, some moments, and that Hollywood climax seems slightly more at home here, the problem of the narrative sustaining its own tension is, sadly, still evident.

Now, as I’d expected, both Alessandro Nivola (as Patrick Faulkner) and Parker Posey (as Helen Wells) carry their own weight here, though Posey flies in and out of the narrative pretty quickly. (Appropriately enough, she’s a stewardess.)
What came as a surprise is that Jessica Alba (as blind violinist Sydney Wells, whose cornea transplant suddenly gives her both normal, and second, sight) actually delivers a passably effective performance, probably the best I’ve seen from her.
Though she does miss a beat here and there, it’s still commendable that she’s clearly stretching here. So long as she steers clear of any future Fantastic Four malarkey, there could still be some hope for her.

It was, however, disappointing that Moreau and Palud couldn’t capture that same sense of tension they nailed in Ils.
I actually had the same reaction to Alexandre Aja’s follow-up to Haute Tension, his remake of The Hills Have Eyes, that it wasn’t as taut as his previous film. Of course, in both cases, the set-up for Ils and Haute Tension is such that the majority of the on-screen action—of the stalk and slay variety—occurs in a rather short amount of time.
Now, while in The Hills Have Eyes, the tension seemed to dissipate since it became spread out over a number of different characters, in The Eye, it ended up defused by the nature of the narrative itself.
There just doesn’t seem to be an adequate amount of atmosphere and suspense to tide the audience over and keep them on the edge, even during the slow bits.
I do however, give props to Patrick Lussier, whose editing, though not exactly brilliant, is quite effective in a number of spots.
Though having mentioned Lussier, I do have to mention something else.

There was talk that floated last year about re-shoots for The Eye that did not involve Moreau or Palud, and that in fact, Lussier was the man who came in to handle them.
It’s a distinct pain that this is becoming a frequent practice, particularly when the film is the first Hollywood project for a foreign director (it’s reportedly happened to the Pang Brothers’ The Messengers, Oliver Hirschbeigel’s The Invasion, and Xavier Gens’ Hitman, to name a few).
To be fair though, The Eye is certainly better than either The Messengers or Hitman. It’s also not as severely compromised as The Invasion. In point of fact, if the Frenchmen were indeed not involved with those re-shoots, then it isn’t plainly evident where those new bits are in the overall picture.
As far as the film’s stand-out moments go though, they don’t quite measure up to the original’s.

If it’s two things I took away from Khon Hen Phi, it was the long-tongued ghost licking obscenely at some meat (sadly gone in this version) and the floating elevator dude (present here, though I do recall finding the original’s take far creepier).
And though I did say the climax felt a little more at home here, this version of the sequence also went whole Hollywood hog with the idea, complete with incidental car chase. Also, as I recall, in Khon Hen Phi, there were some casualties. (Weren’t there? It has been awhile since I’ve seen it…)
Here, Sydney apparently gets everyone out alive.
Sure, this is post-9/11 America, but I suspect it’s really because of one thing: this is Hollywood, people, so the victories have to be grander, don’t they, the triumphs more complete and all-encompassing.
As it is, we’re lucky they still kept the “blessing in disguise” outcome, so the climactic victory still came at an apparent cost.

Ultimately, The Eye is an acceptable English-language remake, and though I can’t really say it’s significantly better than the original, neither is it particularly worse. All in all, a passable way to while away some time. On the heels of what Moreau and Palud achieved with Ils though, this is, admittedly, a bit of a let-down.

Parting shot: Reviews of Ils, both Fantastic Four installments, The Messengers, Hitman, and The Invasion can be found in the Archive.

(The Eye OS, banner, and image courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (21)

21.1 First, some good news.
This took me a while, but I’d just like to congratulate the following, for winning at this year’s Scream Awards:

28 Weeks Later: Best Horror Movie
300: The Ultimate Scream; Best Comic-to-Screen Adaptation
Kate Beckinsale: Scream Queen (for Vacancy)
Grindhouse: Most Memorable Mutilation (Dismembered In Car Crash); Best Director (Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez); Best Scream-Play (Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Jeff Rendell, Eli Roth, Edgar Wright, & Rob Zombie)
Heroes: Best TV Show
Shia LaBeouf: Sci-Fi Star (for Transformers); Scream King (for Disturbia)
El Laberinto Del Fauno: Best Fantasy Movie; Best Foreign Movie (Spain)
Hayden Panettiere: Breakout Performance (for Heroes)

Harrison Ford and Neil Gaiman were also honoured, with The Hero Award and the Comic-Con Icon Award, respectively.

Again, to one and all, congratulations.

(Reviews of 28 Weeks Later, 300, Death Proof, Disturbia, El Laberinto Del Fauno, Planet Terror, Transformers, and Vacancy can be found in the Archive.)

21.2 Now, some bad news.
The WGA strike that many have feared has come to pass. Depending on how long this strike turns out to be, its effects could still be felt as far ahead as next year’s fall television season. (If the impending Directors Guild and Screen Actors Guild strikes next year also go into effect, it’ll make matters all the worse.)
It’s my understanding that Heroes should have new episodes all the way up to the December break, so we should get to see all 11 episodes of Volume Two. After that, all bets are off, particularly if the WGA strike stretches out over the next few months.
As for the other shows I keep track of here at the Iguana, I’m uncertain where they are in terms of their production schedule for their current seasons.
And as far as series kicking off their new seasons next year (like Lost and Battlestar Galactica), their start dates could conceivably be pushed farther away, should this strike prove to be a protracted one.

Apparently an early casualty of the weeks leading up to the strike, the spin-off Heroes: Origins, which I’ve talked about here at the Iguana, has been shelved by NBC.
It’s been pulled off the schedule at the moment (it was set to air at the end of Heroes’ current sophomore season), though I certainly hope it’s not entirely dead. Maybe when the WGA strike has been settled, and provided next year’s impending strikes can be averted, NBC can resuscitate production on Origins.

Meanwhile, film studios were busy for most of this year gearing up for the possibility of a writers’ strike, and went into hyperdrive on a whole slew of pre-strike priority projects, like the Justice League live-action film—which I talked about in Afterthoughts (19) and (20)—in preparation for next year’s strike possibilities. Scripts for high-profile projects scheduled to shoot next year for a 2009 release (like the aforementioned Justice League) were also stockpiled by the studios.
While some projects are getting fast-tracked though, others could get shelved or side-tracked, depending on where they are in the development phase.
We’ll also be seeing some of the films originally scheduled for a 2007 release (like Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘R Treat and David Moreau and Xavier Palud‘s redux of The Eye) hit cinemas next year.

There are a whole lot of other ramifications and intricacies to the WGA strike that go well beyond what I’ve mentioned here, so if you want to know more, get on over to variety.com, which has a host of articles covering the strike.
And let’s hope this one gets resolved soon.

(Images courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com [Scream Awards 2007 and Michael Dougherty] and yahoo.com [Heroes].)

ILS (THEM)
(Review)

Like Open Water and Wolf Creek before it, Ils (Them) is a short, savage little number based on a true story.
In it, a French couple, Clementine Sauveur (Olivia Bonamy) and Lucas Medev (Michael Cohen), recently relocated to Snagov, Romania, are terrorized in their home by unknown assailants.

For anyone who’s read my review of Open Water (reVIEW 23; see Archive: September 2007), you may very well come to the conclusion that these sort of films don’t particularly float my boat. These are the sort of films that, even as the end credits begin to roll, I nearly always find myself asking, Well, what was the point of it all?
Here, the assailants are portrayed decidedly as Other, since the narrative’s focus is locked onto Clementine and Lucas. And since the film covers only the event itself—the aftermath limited to short blocks of text before the end credits—we don’t really get to delve into the motivations, the “why” of it.
So the film’s end-all, be-all is the tension engendered by the action onscreen. This is, perhaps, its point: to make our pulses quicken and keep us on the edge of our seats. (And on occasion, get us to jump out of those aforementioned seats.)
And if this is Ils’ point, it’s raison d’etre, then its existence is justified.

The film itself is a tense little bugger, and the credit for that achievement should go to co-directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud. It’s because of this skilled handling of the narrative’s suspense that I found this a better cinematic experience than either Open Water or Wolf Creek.
In addition, the fact that the next project of Moreau and Palud is the upcoming English-language remake of Khon Hen Phi (The Eye), gives me a healthy sense of anticipation for it. And yes, I am aware that Jessica Alba headlines the redux, so for me to actually say I have “a healthy sense of anticipation” for The Eye should say volumes about just how impressed I was by Moreau and Palud’s achievement on Ils. (I’m also extremely grateful that Parker Posey and Alessandro Nivola are in The Eye, so I can at least be assured I’ll be seeing some good acting.)
With The Eye, Moreau and Palud will have more of an actual plot at their disposal, and I’m curious to see how they handle a story (as opposed to the situation presented in Ils).

In the meantime though, what we ultimately have in Ils is a sobering and unnerving thrillride. After all, as with Open Water and Wolf Creek, this is the dramatized version of an actual event, with the fates of real people up on the screen for us to see.
As I said in my Open Water review, this sort of material isn’t “entertainment” in my books. To witness actual persons in this sort of context seems somehow wrong for me.
If, however, you’re up for this sort of horror, then Ils is definitely your ticket.

(Ils DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com; Them OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

THE

MESSENGERS

(Review)

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Gin Gwai (The Eye). Though it does have its share of stand-out creepy moments, as a whole I felt it didn’t quite reach the high mark of the best horror films out there, Asian or otherwise.
I did however think the Pang brothers were directors to watch out for. But when I saw Sei Mong Se Jun (Ab-Normal Beauty, directed by Oxide), I thought it was clumsy and terribly derivative of Alejandro Amenabar’s Tesis. So, strike two. Not very promising.
And yet, when I first heard of their English-language debut, The Messengers, under Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, I couldn’t help but feel a rush of anticipation. (I have really cut these guys some slack, haven’t I?)

Roy (The Practice’s Dylan McDermott) and Denise Solomon (The Relic’s Penelope Ann Miller) move out to North Dakota, leaving Chicago behind for a fresh start on what will hopefully be a successful sunflower farm. In tow are their troubled teen-aged daughter Jess (Panic Room’s Kristen Stewart) and Ben (played by Evan and Theodore Turner), who hasn’t spoken for six months due to an accident involving Jess.
Naturally, as is wont to happen in this sort of film, strange happenings soon begin to occur, and it quickly becomes clear (to the audience, if not his parents) that Ben can see things the adults can’t. Unable (or unwilling) to speak though, all Ben can do is point, giggle, and crane his neck and look up at the ceiling.
One offer to buy the farm (made by none other than The X-Files’ Cigarette Smoking Man, William B. Davis) and one farmhand (Northern Exposure’s John Corbett) later, the farm’s troubled spirits make themselves known to Jess as well (in a violent overture which occurs while the adults are absent).
But her parents don’t believe her, so it’s up to Jess to get to the bottom of their new home’s mystery.

Certainly not a new premise; we’ve all seen the family moving in to the new, but ultimately haunted house before. But the Pangs line up the scares well, and are working with a script that does its best to give us a real family, with real problems. When the fit hits the shan in horror movies of this sort, I’m immediately hollering, “Well, get the ef outta there! Screw the house!”
But the Solomons really just can’t up and leave. For one thing, they don’t believe Jess (who they may still subconsciously blame for Ben’s condition). Then there’s the fact that they’re basically broke (since Roy was out of work for a pretty long time, and then there were all Ben’s hospital bills).
The Messengers actually has characters, as opposed to the ciphers that normally populate horror films. They may not be awfully complex, but they’re certainly not one-dimensional. It’s apparent that the parents are trying to get through to their daughter, just as she eventually comes around to doing, only to have those pesky ghosts ruin everything.

Where The Messengers fails though, is in its third act.
When the other shoe drops, and the secret reveals itself, it’s a “secret” that any savvy horror film fan would have clocked the second it came onscreen. To make matters worse, the script contrives to have one family member absent when said shoe drops, sadly compromising that character’s contributions to the proceedings.
And if this was the shoe to begin with, you’d think the ghosts would have been just a little more active than they actually were.
You also know that Ben’s gonna start spouting off before this movie ends. Personally, I just expected it to be during some pivotal scene where his speaking would actually have had dramatic weight. But no.

There are any number of reasons why this film didn’t work, among them, the possibility that there were individuals other than the Pangs who ended up muddying the cinematic waters.
In an interview, McDermott mentions, “… they brought in writer after writer to polish it up and make it better.” Re-shoots were then done (not by the Pangs, but by Eduardo Rodriguez, who directed Curandero, from a Robert Rodriguez script). Raimi was then active in postproduction, apparently in the editing room.
At this point, I’ve probably already crossed over into the Never-Never Land of Speculation, so I’ll just leave it at that.
What remains though is a film that, like Gin Gwai, just doesn’t work in the end. Granted, it has its moments, and it’s a lot better than a lot of the horror coming out of Hollywood’s posterior these days, but it’s far from a classic.
Now perhaps if Raimi ponies up the money to finance a script written by the Pangs themselves, then leaves them to their devices, then we might get cooking.

Parting shot: I am saddened to report to all those still unaware, that the English language remake of Gin Gwai currently filming has Jessica Alba in the lead role. At least Parker Posey’s in there, so I’m happy.

(The Messengers OS courtesy of wildaboutmovies.com.)

(Originally posted 021707)