Interview: Rachael Taylor on "Shutter"

Jane (Rachel Taylor) discovers a clue to the haunting. Remaking Asian horror films is a thankless job, but Hollywood keeps on trying. Fans of the originals hate the new versions, and general audiences seem to be losing interest: ONE MISSED CALL and THE EYE, both released earlier this year, made only $26.9-million and $31.0-million, respectively. Hoping to reverse this trend is SHUTTER, starring Joshua Jackson (DAWSON’S CREEK) and Rachael Taylor (TRANSFORMERS), which is based on the excellent 2004 Thai film of the same title, about a young couple haunted by a female ghost that manifests itself in the form of “Spirit Photography.” Rachael Taylor acknowledges that the Thai version of SHUTTER is hard to match; however, she hopes the remake is no mere photo duplicate of the original but rather a new interpretation that brings its own unique focus to the subject. 
“I appreciate that remaking a film in the horror genre is a sensitive thing because people become very loyal to the original film,” she says. “Of course they’ve been remade to varying degrees of success in the West, so I wanted to know what I was up against. It turned out I was up against a lot, because it’s a very, very good film. But it was one of the reasons I wanted to do the movie, because I think it’s such an interesting film. It’s not just a horror movie about a haunted house; it’s dealing with some interesting issues in a relationship. So I felt there was enough for me to explore as an actor. Also, the perspective of our film, the American version, is very different from the Thai version – in the sense that it’s more of a male perspective in the Thai film. It’s about him running away from his past and trying to forget his past. The American version is more about the female character trying to unpack his past. So it’s quite different.”
Unlike ghosts in many J-Horror films, who target victims almost at random (because they happened to watch the wrong videotape or walk into the wrong house), the one in SHUTTER has a very specific motivation: trying to get a message across to the land of the living, so that a grievous wrong will be brought to light. When Ben (Jackson), a professional photographer working in Tokyo, is reluctant to believe he has captured a ghost on film, it falls to his new bride Jane (Taylor) to solve the mystery. Taylor hopes this plot line elevates SHUTTER above the run-of-the-mill horror remake.


“What I like about the film is that it’s not playing an irrelevant female character that’s blond and young and in a ghost house and having horrible things happen to her. She’s proactive in terms of the story. She’s proactive in trying to figure out what these supernatural images mean. And she’s proactive in trying to get to the bottom of what the secret is. When she finds out it is a very changing thing for her, and based on her own personal morality, that’s not something she can forgive. She’s a normal girl, but she’s starts the movie in a very different place… She’s just happy to be married; she just wants to go on the journey, and she has her eyes blissfully shut, if you ask me. She has to pull herself out of that. I think that’s the mark of a strong female character to me.”
Avoiding the mistake made by many remakes of Asian horror films, SHUTTER does not completely Americanize the subject matter. A Japanese co-production, the new version was shot in Japan with a Japanese producer (RING’s Taka Ichise) and director (INFECTION’s Masayuki Ochiai). This presented problems for the Australian actress: besides the language barrier there was also the question of maintaining her American accent. (“One thing is doing an American accent while you’re in America, but it’s more difficult when you’re shooting in Tokyo.”) However, in a skillful display of cinematic jiu-jitsu, Taylor turned the culture shock to their advantage.
“It was tough shooting in a foreign country with a non-English-speaking director,” she says. “It certainly was a challenge. It was cool because they are the same challenges that the character is facing. You got to use that: she’s going through the fish-out-of-water, lost-in-translation experience of not knowing what everything really means. That was the experience I had personally.”
The experience included communicating with director Ochiai through a translator.
“He speaks a little [English] but not in terms of being able to build an intimate [rapport],” she says. “We had an incredible translator. Having said that, translation is certainly useful, but I really felt that I was isolated in terms of performance. I had to make my own choices and was sort of left stranded on my own. Which is not to say that Masayuki Ochiai is not good at what he does; he’s absolutely good at what he does. He understands how to create a creepy scenario very expertly. But it was kind of good to be left to my own instincts as an actor and not just be a warm prop, told where to stand and how to look and what to say. It was cool to have to lock into my own instinct. The character is obviously going through a particular kind of internal turmoil of doubt and questioning her relationship and dealing with the issues of betrayal of trust and secrets and revenge and lies. It was challenging, really challenging. The only job of an actor – which is both a good thing and a bad thing, because you can never really control the outcome of the film – all you can do is take care of yourself; you can just nurture your character. No one knows your character like you do. If you protect that, then you’re doing what you’re being paid to do.”
Taylor credits leading man Joshua Jackson with helping fill the void created by the language problem. The actors play American newlyweds in the remake: whereas the Thai couple were simply living together while the girl went to school, Ben and Jane head to Japan for their honeymoon, followed by a high-paying photo assignment for Ben in Tokyo. Things go wrong when Ben’s pictures are marred by inexplicable glitches.
“I think one of the most important things for me, in terms of telling the story, was to make sure the relationship was plausible in terms of they were blissfully newlywed; they loved each other, and it was an intimate, loving and trusting relationship,” Taylor explains. “Josh was the perfect person to create that with, because he’s an incredibly open and spirited man, and he’s a great actor. More than being a great actor, he’s a cerebral actor, and I really like that. He likes to get into things, and he likes things to make sense; he likes to fuss with the story and all of that stuff, to make it better. He’s really invested in his work, and so I am. So he was a really great comrade to have, and he was so necessary. It was just Josh and I out there. It was a Japanese crew and a Japanese director, so we had to just hang on to each other and take care of each other.”
In particular, Jackson guided Taylor through the scene she considered the most difficult – a car crash that results from running over a mysterious woman on an isolated road. This is the flash-point from which the haunting proceeds, but Taylor was uncertain how to handle the scene, having never been in an actual accident.
“Fortunately Josh was with me, and he was really supportive on that. He was like, ‘When you’re in a car accident, you use every bit of strength that you can to protect yourself from that steering wheel.’ Which you don’t actually know if you haven’t been in a car accident. That’s usually a director’s job, and Masayuki Ochiai said what he could, but the language barrier made it difficult. There are just things that you do in a car accident that are very particular to that experience, so Josh was really helpful guiding me through that.”
The culture shock of filming in Japan was not the only experience that Taylor turned to her advantage. There was also the matter of filmming in places that lent the appropriate atmosphere.
“We shot in some pretty spooky locations: three o’clock in the morning on an old abandoned road; in an old abandoned hospital that was still semi-functioning, where I ended up getting lost while it was raining outside; in this old abandoned Japanese house. People say, ‘Are you really scared when you’re scared?’ It’s kind of your job to be. Actors have different techniques, but I personally like to use my imagination. I’m like ‘What if you were really my husband and you really betrayed me like this?’ That’s what helps me as an actor. It’s different for everyone. I just believe in using my imagination, and I believe in empathy as well. Human beings go through all sorts of horrific things and wonderful things on a day-to-day basis; if you can just imagine what it might be like to be someone like that, then that’s half the job done.”

Jane (Rachel Taylor) tries to protect her husband from a ghost

Another difference from the original version of SHUTTER is that the remake goes to greater lengths to explain the phenomenon of spirit photography to a presumably skeptical American audience. Taylor remains agnostic on the subject.
“I was not skeptical about spirit photography, especially because I had very little understanding of what it was before I shot the movie. But in terms of the world of the supernatural, I wasn’t categorically a non-believer, but I wasn’t categorically a believer, either. I saw somewhere in the middle of not being sure. Then I started doing research on spirit photography, and it’s fascinating. It is a true phenomenon, and there are pictures that have these inexplicable images on them. We can’t explain them as a light mark or a water mark or a technical problem or whatever; they’re just these funny images. Do I believe it now? I think I have the same personal thing on it that the film does, which is that if a supernatural, if a spiritual message needs to make itself heard, then it will find a way to do that. I think that’s a fair call to make. Like if something is so emotionally potent that it needs to find a way to surface, then I think absolutely it’s possible. I’m not checking my pictures at this moment to see if there’s a spirit in it, but touch wood anyway.”
No matter how much the new version struggles to be see in its own light, the original is always there, providing an easy comparison. Did awareness of the Thai film ever come back to figuratively haunt Taylor during filming?
“A little bit,” she admits. “You want it to be respectful. It’s a tricky thing to remake someone else’s piece of art, and you’ve got to be sensitive and you’ve got to be respectful, and I hope that we were. I didn’t direct the film, so I can’t be responsible for the whole thing, but you want to be decent about it and not completely butcher it. I don’t think we did.”
Of course, some fans will inevitably feel different, no matter how good the intentions of the remake. Taylor has already caught a glimpse of the fan reaction to SHUTTER.
“You only make the mistake once or twice of going online and Googling yourself,” she laughs. “Then you never have to do it again. I think the responses to this movie are either really, really positive and they adore it and they’re like ‘it’s a kick-ass female horror movie and we love it,’ or they’re like ‘the original was better” because they have that allegiance to the original film. I think that’s a really great response, if people are in any way split or divided. Mostly what I’ve seen, people have been positive about it. But I think any response is a good response, and these are passionate people, the horror-movie fan-boys. I think that they get involved with film in that way is really cool. I’m never personally offended by it. There’s this one website called ‘The Bastardly’ or something, and it’s so mean, but like I said, I won’t look at it again.”
eagan Fox (left) and Rachael Taylor (right) at the premiere of TRANSFORMERS (2007)With TRANSFORMERS and SHUTTER on her resume, Taylor could be poised to become a genre specialist, but she has also recently completed the non-genre BOTTLE SHOCK, with Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman. Does she enjoy the challenge offered by science-fiction and horror films?
“I do actually,” she responds enthusiastically. “It’s not to say that’s all I want to make for the rest of my career, but I like the spectrum of emotions that you get to play with when you do a movie like this. You’re dealing with rich and potent emotions. Each day you go to work, you’re dealing with the threat of death and the world of the supernatural, betrayal and secrets and mistrust in a relationship. So you’re playing stakes that are very, very high. And I think that’s great for a young actor, to be thrown into that world, where you’ve got such an array of colors. From the start of the movie, where it’s blissful, happy newlyweds, to the end of the movie where it’s like complete distress.
“I’m a young actor and I’m learning, and every job is a pleasure,” Taylor concludes. “Honestly, it’s such a pleasure going to work as an actor; it’s such a wonderful craft. It’s a total blessing, and everyone wants to help you.”

RELATED ARTICLE: How does SHUTTER rate according to other remakes of Asian horror films? Check out: Remaking Asian Horror: A Brief History.

Interview: Joshua Jackson on "Shutter"

Joshua Jackson as the photogrrapher who captures an image of a ghost (JU-ON: THE GRUDGE's Megumi Okina)

SHUTTER, the new film starring Joshua Jackson (DAWSON’S CREEK) and Rachael Taylor (TRANSFORMERS) is based on an Asian horror film, as is all too often the case these days. However, there is a difference from the usual remake: the new version is an American-Japanese co-production, based not on a Japanese film but on an excellent effort from Thailand. The screenwriter is American; the director is Japanese, and so is producer Taka Ichise, who gave us the original Japanese versions of RING and JU-ON, as well as their American remakes THE RING and THE GRUDGE. Like THE GRUDGE, the new version of SHUTTER places American characters in Tokyo, where they encounter a Japanese ghost girl who will not go quietly into the afterlife. Continue reading “Interview: Joshua Jackson on "Shutter"”

Remaking Asian Horror – A Brief History

THE GRUDGE: Kayako (Takako Fuji) performs her infamous downstairs crawl in the American remake.

THE EYE (based on the 2002 film by the Pang Brothers) is the lastest in a series of remakes inspired by horror films from Japan, Korea, and China. American audiences first became aware of this trend in 2002, when THE RING (a remake of Japan’s 1998 gem RING) was released to blockbuster success – nearly $130-million at the U.S. box office alone. This led to THE GRUDGE two years later (based on JU-ON: THE GRUDGE), which was almost as big a success as THE RING, earning in excess of $110-million on American screens. Of course, this kind of success inspires repetition, and it seems as if American cinema has been drowning in remakes of Asian horror films ever since (a fact spoofed in the tagline for HATCHET, which proclaimed, “It’s not a sequel, it’s not a remake, and it’s not based on a Japanese one”).
As one might expect from a trend based entirely on mercenary motives, the critical reaction has been mostly negative. After all, few of these films cry out to be remade; most of the originals are superior; and the main stumbling block to U.S. distribution is the language barrier (American audiences do not like to read subtitles, and dubbing often sounds silly). American filmmakers look to Asia less for inspiration than for ready-made templates that can be used to punch out duplicates; besides language and loctation, the major “improvements” usually consist of pumping up the pacing with a few more jump-scares and enhancing the special effects with computer-generated imagery.
What is perhaps a little more surprising in the face of the on-going trend is that, since THE GRUDGE, none of these films has become a blockbuster. In 2005, THE RING 2 topped out at $76-million; a year later, THE GRUDGE 2 fared even worse, falling shy of the $40-million mark. At this point, an Asian-inspired horror film that could crack $30-million would be an anamoly, yet Hollywood keeps churning them out ( apparently the rational is that the film can still be profitable because they can be made cheaply).
This is a sad statement about the lack of originality in the American horror genre. One can hardly blame filmmakers for chasing after the big bucks, but when it becomes an accounting game (“After  tallying in DVD sales and ancillary markets, we’re out of the red”), one has to wonder how the mercenary motivation can be strong enough to justify the continuing artistic hackery.
With this preamble in mind, below the fold we offer a rundown of remakes and spin-offs inspired by great Asian horror films. We had originally considered calling this a “Best of” list, until the absurdity of using “best” in this context reduced us to gales of derisive laughter. Read on, if you dare…

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RING (a.k.a. “Ringu,” 1998).

RING (998) proves that television is bad for you: Sadako emerges from the cursed video tape

Our first entry is a bit of a joke: the film that started it all is a remake! Koji Suzuki’s novel had previously been adapted as a 1995 Japanese television mini-series that hewed closer to the source material. The feature film version made several significant changes: the lead character became a single woman with a child (as in Suzuki’s short story “Dark Water”); the virus metaphor (with references to small pox and DNA providing a hint of a scientific explanation for the cursed video) was downplayed in favor of the supernatural; and in a nod to David Cronenberg’s VIDEODROME, the memorable conclusion featured the ghostly Sadako emerging from the television set. The rest is horror history.

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RING 2 (a.k.a. “Ringu 2,” 1999).
This sequel to RING is in a sense a remake, although we may be stretching the definition a bit. The first sequel, RASEN (a.k.a. “Spiral,” 1998, based on Suzuki’s novel), was shot simultaneously with RING, but it turned out to be a box office flop. One year later, the producers went back and made a new sequel. Although RING 2 is officially not a remake of RASEN, it does hit many of the same story points: Takano Mai (Nakatanii Miki) is searching to unravel the mystery of math professor Ryuji Takayama’s death in the first film; the parents of Reiko Asakawa (the reporter from the first film) choose to burn the videotape and die rather than spread Sadako’s curse; and Asakawa dies in a car accident. RING 2 is a bit of a rehash (“let’s take what worked before and do it again”), but it captures a little bit of the mood from its predecessor, and fans may find it diverting.

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THE RING VIRUS (2000).
Before the Americans got ahold of RING, South Korea delivered this  remake (which takes its title from a phrase used in Spiral, Susuki’s sci-fi sequel to his original novel). This film contains several elements from the novel that were abandoned in the Japanese film; in his book The Ring Companion, Denis Meikle goes so far as to insist that RING VIRUS is too different to be considered a genuine remake. Nevertheless, this film retains the essential changes wrought by RING: the protagonist is a woman reporter with a child, and the film ends with the evil ghost (here called Eun-Su) crawling out of a television set. RING VIRUS has little to offer that was not done better in RING, but it does feature a few ideas/images that were borrowed in the later American remake, so the Korean film has had an impact on the trend that followed.

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THE RING (2002).
Here is where the remake trend really took off at the box office. When producers Laurie MacDonald and Walter F. Parkes saw RING, instead of simply purchasing the distribution rights, the opted to remake it for American audiences. Their version borrows not only from its namesake but also from RING 2  and THE RING VIRUS (and possibly even DARK WATER). It is pretty much a soulless, mechanical affair, “distinguished” by the addition of a few gratuitous shocks (a suicide by electrocution in the bath tub and the goring of a horse by a ship’s propeller) and by some crazy foreshadowing (long before Samara [this film’s version of Sadako, played by Daveigh Chase], a fly magically emerges from a TV screen showing the cursed videotape, but our crack reporter does not sense a front page story at this miracle). The film is not exactly bad, but it is lacking in inspiration and atmosphere, creating some dull passages (unlike the original, which was tense even when nothing was happening). In any case, it was a huge hit, with a worldwide gross of nearly $250-million.

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THE GRUDGE (2004).
Uniquely, this remake of JU-ONE: THE GRUDGE was directed by the same man who helmed the original, Takashi Shimizu; not only that, it is set in Tokyo instead of being relocated to America, and Takako Fuji returns as the malevolent ghost Kayako. The American production company, Ghost House, was created by Sam Raimi (director of SPIDER-MAN) specifically to remake foreign horror films for the American market. Raimi wisely realized that, in the horror genre, execution can be more important than story; hence the hiring of Shimizu. The screenplay by Stephen Susco incorporates elements from all four Japanese JU-ON movies and forefronts the leading lady (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar), turning her into a more traditional protagonist and diminishing the fragmented narrative structure of the original. Despite the changes, this is easily the best of the American remakes, the only one that stands on its own. It’s a bit like hearing a recording artist redo one of his own hits: Working with Hollywood resources, Shimizu not only recreates his patented scares; he sometimes exceeds them. For example, check out the wonderful elevator scene, in which cat-ghost boy Toshio is seen on every floor: unlike the original, which relied on editing to fake the illusion, the American remake achieves the effect in a single, continuous take. The result was another box office hit, with worldwide reveneues of over $188-million.

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THE RING TWO (2005).

Samara climbs out of the well in THE RING TWO

This time, the American producers followed the example of Sam Raimi and hired the director of the Japanese original to helm their film. Although not officially a remake of RING 2, this American sequel to the 2002 hit takes a similar tack, destroying the cursed videotape right off the bat, instead of following up on the implications of THE RING’s ending (which suggested that copies of the tape would spread like a virus). Having nipped the curse in the bud, the screenplay by Ehren Kruger has to come up with a new story, which it does, but only feebly. Now, Samara seems to want a mother figure to replace the one she lost while alive, and she turns her attention on harassing the son of reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts). With this storyline, and plenty of water imagery, THE RING TWO feels like more of a remake of DARK WATER. Hideo Nagata, director of RING, got a chance to helm this sequel, but he brings little of the atmosphere and intensity he achieved in his Japanese horror films; the film just coasts along, searching for scares like a tourist on a lonely road, desperate for a roadside attraction to break the tedium. The film showed a steep decline at the box office from THE RING, but it was still a big hit worldwide, earning nearly $162-million.

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DARK WATER (2005).
This is not a particularly bad film, but it succumbs to the all-too-common “it’s not really a horror film” syndrome. Following the plot of the 2001 Japanese film, this remake stars Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly as a woman going through a painful divorce, who moves into a rundown building with her daughter. The dingy, deteriorating setting becomes an externalization of her declining mental state, and to top it all off, the place is haunted by a little ghost girl looking for a surrogate mother. The film was a box office disappointment, perhaps predictably; after all, its basic  had been stolen by THE RING TWO, so audiences were left feeling as if they had seen it all before. Consequently, this is the first evidence that remaking a J-Horror film is not the equivalent of minting gold. Worldwide box office returns fell shy of $50-million.

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THE GRUDGE 2 (2006).
After the success of THE GRUDGE, this sequel turned out to be a massive disappointment. Like THE RING TWO, this is not an official remake of its Japanese namesake, JU-ON: THE GRUDGE 2; instead, we get an original story that finds screenwriter Stephen Susco (like Ehren Kruger before him) fumbling about when he does not have a pre-written story to copy. Judgin from the behind-the-scenes features on the DVD, there were major disagreements between the American production company and the Japanese filmmakers over what direction to take; the result is a compromised effort that plays out like a weak duplication of its predecessor. Director Takashi Shimizu utilizes his patented scare techniques, but they are undermined by a convoluted structure that delays the pay-offs past the point of audience patience. The film is also hampered by a rather obvious studio injunction to get the story headed toward America, presumably so that subsequent sequels can abandon the Tokyo connection altogether. One gets the feeling that the strategy was to set the franchise up to make less expensive sequels, possibly for the DVD market (a suspicion enhanced by the “Tales from the Grudge” Internet webisodes released before the film, which looked like resume builders for a potential future director). The box office result was a big drop from THE GRUDGE, with worldwide total not quite reaching $69-million.

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PULSE (2006).
This remake of the enigmatic KAIRO (2001) sat on a shelf for a long time while the Hollywood filmmakers re-tooled it. They might as well have not bothered: when it finally came out, it barely earned $20-million in the U.S., with overseas totals boosting the worldwide total to a meagre $29.8-million.

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ONE MISSED CALL (2008).
Arriving earlier this year, this remake proved once and for all that Hollywood just does not get it. The 2004 Japanese original (directed by Takasha Miike) was a virtual parody of the cliches that had proliferated in the six years since RING. Ingoring the satirical intent of the original, the American remake treats the material with a straight face, as if it had never been seen before, and the result is decidedly dull, even though the running time is nearly a half-hour shorter. Not only that, director Eric Valette botches the two big set pieces: the death of one victim in a television recording studio, and the resurrection of a corpse in a hospital. As of this writing, the film’s U.S. gross stands at $26.2-million, with overseas revenues yet to kick in. Final tallies should be somewhere in the neighborhood of DARK WATER.

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When a horror sub-genre is so depleted that it cannot deliver even basic scares, it is time to call it quits. Unfortunately, Hollywood refuses to learn its lesson. Not only is THE EYE opening today; A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (remade from the well regarded Korean film) is scheduled for later this year. Oh well, at least the continuing trend of Asian remakes is no worse than TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, THE HITCHER, and FRIDAY THE 13TH.

The Eye 10 (2005) – DVD Review

Despite the numeral 10 in the title, this is only the second sequel to THE EYE; the title actually refers to ten methods for viewing the dead, one of which was seen in each previous film, leaving eight for this movie to explore. This interesting concept helps retroactively turn the first two EYES into more of a matched pair (THE EYE 2 actually had little in common with its predecessor), and it also provides a vivid jumping-off for more sight-seeing among the dead. Unfortunately, the promising premise soon grows weary and bloodshot with strain, and the film develops an even more obvious case of myopia than afflicted THE EYE 2. Directors Danny and Oxide Pang display occasional flashes of the brilliant vision that made the original EYE a sight not to be missed, but more often than not they seem blind to the serious emotional qualities that made the film something more than a silly spook show.
The minimal story has a group from Hong Kong on vacation in Thailand, where a friend reveals “The Ten Encounters.” Having heard of the first two (brief flashbacks imply they are familiar with the vents of EYE and EYE 2), the friends decided to try the other eight, in hope of seeing a ghost. During one encounter (a sort of hide and seek by night in the woods, with a cat used to reveal the ghost), one of the group disappears, apparently sucked into the spirit world. Two of his friends bail out on him, returning to Hong Kong, while another stays behind to search for him, and winds up disappearing herself. Eventually, the two friends in Hong Kong, haunted by ghosts and guilt, return to Thailand and use the Tenth Encounter (sleeping in funeral clothes) to enter the Land of the Dead and search for their missing comrades.
For the first act, the concept works as a means to string together a series of frightening set pieces; you actually believe the film is going to consist of eight sequences, one for each of the untried “Encounters.” Although the method lacks the dramatic aspirations of the first two pictures, it does lend itself to a bigger eyeful of spooky encounters. In particular, an exterior sequence at a crossroads, tapping chopsticks on bowls to summon hungry spirits, is a highlight, with dozens of the dead swarming around the frightened humans (who must continue tapping or risk becoming visible to the ghosts).
Once the plot kicks in, the film stumbles and falls as if struck blind. The cowardly departure of two friends is treated as a joke, but it’s a bad one. Later, one of the lead characters is briefly possessed, and his jerky contortions are misinterpreted by a break-dancer as a challenge, leading to a lengthy music-video interlude, set to rap music. The sequence is actually one of the most memorable in the film (the visual slapstick is laugh-out-loud funny), but it destroys any vestige of credibility, ensuring that no suspense can survive for the third act excursion into the other world. In any case, the quest in the land of the dead is played for even cruder laughs, including a mind-bogglingly stupid flatulence joke: The swarms of the dead are held at bay by the warm breath of the living; when the living run out of breath, they resort to expelling gas, which is rendered as a computer-generated smoke ring!
Whatever their relative merits, THE EYE and THE EYE 2 aspired to a certain maturity in the story-telling, in each case focusing on a young adult woman undergoing an emotional crisis brought on by unwanted encounters with the dead. THE EYE 10, conversely, is juvenile in concept and execution, focusing on a group of stupid kids who invite trouble upon themselves. Perhaps this was intended to distinguish the sequel from its predecessors, but the attempt backfires: THE EYE 10 ends up resembling dozens of other bad teen horror flicks, filled with non-entity victims. And the incongruous humor seems like a deliberately brutal jab at the viewer’s cornea, warning the audience not to look for the serious quality that distinguished the first film.
All in all, this is one EYE that should have stayed wide shut.

THE TEN ENCOUNTERS

As listed in the film, here are the “Ten Encounters” for viewing the dead:

  1. Seeing through the eyes of the dead (as in THE EYE)
  2. Attempting suicide while pregnant (as in THE EYE 2)
  3. Playing with a Spirit Glass (which spells out answers like a Ouija Board)
  4. Tapping chopsticks on a bowl at an intersection to summon hungry spirits
  5. Playing hide and seek at midnight (a ghost will “hide” one of the players, but a black cat will reveal the ghost)
  6. Rubbing one’s eyes with soil from a grave
  7. Opening an umbrella indoors
  8. Gazing into a mirror at midnight while brushing one’s hair
  9. Bending over to look upside down through one’s own legs
  10. Being laid out in clothing as if for one’s own funeral.

DVD DETAILS

The DVD for THE EYE 10 features a good widescreen transfer with 5.1 surround sound, in the original language (Cantonese, Thai, etc), with English subtitles. Bonus features include a trailer and a making-of featurette. The featurette explains the reasoning behind the title (trying to do something other than the expected “Eye 3”). It also features the Pang brothers discussing their inspiration for the “Ten Encounters”: as in the featurettes for THE EYE and THE EYE 2, they claim to have based their ideas on real events, including a game of hide and seek in which a boy went missing for days but had only felt the experience of being gone for a few minutes (presumably because time is slower in the spirit world).

THE EYE 10 (“Gin Gwai 10,” a.k.a. “The Eye: Infinity,” 2005). Directed by Danny Pang and Oxide pang. Written by Mar Wu, from a story by Oxide pang and Danny Pang. Cast: Bo-lin Chen, Yu Gu, Bongkoj Khongmalai, Isabella Leong, Ray MacDonald, Kate Yeung.

FILM & DVD REVIEWS: The Eye The Eye 2 – The Eye (2008 remake)

The Eye 2 (2004) – Film & DVD Review

This follow-up to THE EYE provides another glimpse into the land of the dead. Fans may enjoy the “second sight,” but this EYE lacks the compelling vision of its predecessor. Less a sequel than a variation on the theme, the story has nothing to do with the original except for the basic concept of a young woman who sees dead people. The attempt to create something new, instead of rehasing the original, is laudable, but the effort is undermined by weak plotting and a somewhat unsympathetic protagonist, who never engages our interest as well as Mun (Angelica Lee) did in the previous film. The directing duo of the Pang Brothers offer compensation in the form of some more memorably spooky supernatural manifestations, and as before they try to balance the horror with sentimental moments that tug the heartstrings. In this case however, they over-reach themselves, eventually descending into overwrought melodrama. Continue reading “The Eye 2 (2004) – Film & DVD Review”

Sense of Wonder: J-Horror Day

Sadako appears in RING (1998).Although a bit late, we decided to turn today into “J-Horror Day” at Cinefantastique Online in honor of the release of ONE MISSED CALL, a remake of the interesting 2004 Japanese film directed by cult auteur Takashi Miike. The recent wave of Japanese horror films was launched in 1998 with RING, an “Instant Classic” that immediately established a set of cliches that were worked and reworked in numerous sequels, remakes, and rip-offs. In the East, RING (a.k.a. RINGU) served as a template for other creative artists, who contributed worthwhile variations on the theme, sometimes approaching the level of the original. PULSE (2001), THE EYE (a 2002 film from Hong Kong), PHONE (a 2002 film from South Korea), and JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (2003) are all good enough to stand beside RING as unique horror efforts in their own right. 2003’s A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (another South Korean film) may be a bit too artsy for its own good, but it earns respect for its ambitious approach, combing supernatural motifs with psycho-drama. 2001’s DARK WATER (directed by RING’s Hideo Nagata, again based on the fiction of Koji Suzuki) may not match its predecessor, but it shows a firm command of the elements, yielding another creepy ghost story worthy of consideration. Continue reading “Sense of Wonder: J-Horror Day”

The Great Yokai War (2005) – Film Review

Directed by Takashi Miike, THE GREAT YOKAI WAR (a.k.a. “Yokai Daisenso”) is an attempt to revive the spirit monsters that starred in three 1960s fantasy films (one of which was also titled YOKAI DAISENSO, although the new one is not a direct remake). The new version has a great trailer that makes the film look absolutely wonderful (including a great CGI shot of the snake-necked woman), and the material seems perfect for a modern version using up-to-date special effects. Sad to say, the result is almost a complete botch, and most of the fault lies with cult auteur Miike. Although he has created interesting genre work (“Box” from THREE…EXTREMES and ONE MISSED CALL, for example), he is perhaps too quirky and idiosyncratic a talent to pull off a children’s fantasy film with conviction. Or to put it another way: no matter what genre he works in, he always delivers a Takashi Miike film that will appeal primarily to his fans; those who come to enjoy the traditional genre elements may be in trouble. Continue reading “The Great Yokai War (2005) – Film Review”

Reincarnation (2005) – J-Horror Film Review

There is a a somewhat disappointing effort from the creator of THE GRUDGE. The screenplay has an intriguing premise; however, director and co-writer Takashi Shimizu’s strength has never been for narrative but for effortlessly spinning endless spooky vignettes tied together only by a central idea. As a result, REINCARNATION’s attempt to build suspense over the course of an hour-and-a-half feels tired and listless, with long narrative and expository sequences that do an adequate job of telling the story but fail to deliver thrills – or even the anticipation of thrills to come. Continue reading “Reincarnation (2005) – J-Horror Film Review”

Marebito (2004) – J-Horror Film Review

This 2004 effort from director Takashi Shimizu (filmed in eight days, between the fourth JU-ON film and the American remake THE GRUDGE) is not up to his usual standard, but it is an oddball effort that is in some ways even more experimental than his previous work. Shimizu’s JU-ON series rather boldly experimented with structure to good effect, tossing out conventional narrative in favor of a puzzle-like mosaic of episodes, but he always offered easy audience identification with the helpless victims. This time, working from a script he did not write, the director abandons even this connection to the audience, pushing his film even further into unconventional territory. It is far from a completely successful experiment, but it does create something with a unique enough identity to be worth exploring. Continue reading “Marebito (2004) – J-Horror Film Review”

Film Interview: Takashi Shimizu on Holding a Grudge

“IT NEVER FORGIVES. IT NEVER FORGETS.”

That’s the tag-line for THE GRUDGE, the horror film starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as an American social worker in Tokyo who is exposed to a mysterious curse that spreads like a virus as it claims new victims. What many mainstream Western audiences may not realize is that THE GRUDGE is based on an excellent series of Japanese horror films that have revitalized the genre with a kind of intensity seldom seen on the movie screen. The four previous films that make up the “Grudge” series (titled “Ju-On” in Japanese) are filled with a barrage of imagery that is nightmarish, surreal, and at times confusing, but the style should not be completely unfamiliar to non-Japanese viewers. Some of supernatural manifestations (female ghosts with long, dark scraggly hair obscuring their faces) are reminiscent of the 1998 Japanese horror hit Ring, which was remade in American in 2002 as The Ring. The Ju-On films up the ante, however; whereas Ring featured a strong narrative, laced with unseen menace, that built slowly to its terrifying climax, Ju-On and its sequels eschew traditional plot structure in favor of an episodic approach that shifts point of view as each new character comes in contact with the “curse” that will doom them. With no clearly identified protagonist, the films spend little time on characterization and back story; the running time is devoted almost totally to staging the hauntings. Continue reading “Film Interview: Takashi Shimizu on Holding a Grudge”