The Grudge and the 10 best foreign horror movie remakes
By Wesley Lara
10. Shutter (2008)
Remake of Shutter (2004) – Thailand
The list starts with a rather unpopular choice in the American horror movie remake community. Shutter, based on the 2004 Thai horror film of the same name, earned the ire of film critics back in 2008 when it premiered as yet another remake in the boom of Asian horror remakes in America (more on a couple of those later).
The film, which follows a couple moving to Japan and being haunted by the spirit of a girl with a bone to pick, was torn apart for stripping away the atmosphere of the original with jump scares.
To be fair, it’s not as if the remake handles all of the horror well. It does dive into that familiar well of startling the audience instead of unnerving them for most of the time. At the core of it all though, the story still manages to pack a morbid punch with its revenge aspects and the reasoning for the haunting. No spoilers, but characters have massive skeletons in their closets in both versions and the remake offers a solid interpretation of the story’s dark underbelly.
Combined with that are scares that feel reminiscent of not just the original film, but similarly structured stories in video games like the Fatal Frame series, which has the character experience the terror through a camera. This likely comes from the influence of Japanese director, Masayuki Ochiai, who helmed the movie and has also directed some solid J-horror films as well. Shutter benefits from his touch and becomes so much better than the critics initially said at its release.