Nicole Kidman did it in The Others; Naomi Watts in The Ring. With Shutter, it's Rachael Taylor's turn to be the Australian starlet carrying a sizeable Hollywood horror-thriller. Like her compatriots, Taylor also gets the chance to act in her scary movie.
"I'm not really interested in being exposed just as, y'know, 'le hot chick'," the 23-year-old says matter-of-factly, her Tassie twang intact even though she has spent the past few years in Los Angeles. "I was kind of hesitant approaching it because I think sometimes you run the risk of being in pretty-blonde-female-in-haunted-house-running-away-from-ghosts kind of territory. I really felt Shutter has more to offer than that."
Taylor plays Jane, a blissfully happy newlywed who heads off with her photographer husband, Ben (Joshua Jackson), for a honeymoon in his old stomping ground of Tokyo. (He has also sorted out a glamorous gig snapping models while there. Who said romance was dead?) They're driving to a honeymoon retreat in the woods when a pale Japanese woman (Megumi Okina) suddenly appears on the road and they unintentionally run her over.
Or so they think. There's not a trace of blood on the road or on the car, so Ben urges Jane to forget about the accident, suggesting it must have been an (apparently bloodless) animal they hit. He gets over it quickly enough but Jane can't. The fact they're in a country where Ben knows everything from the language to the customs, while she knows next to nothing, doesn't help their fledgling marriage, either. Especially when the creepy woman from the accident keeps scaring the pants off them, showing up in their residence and even, somehow, in the now-not-so-happy couple's photos.
This brings us to one of the film's central themes. So-called "spirit photography" involves undoctored snaps featuring what seem to be ghosts - hence the title, which refers to the part of a camera that's crucial to capturing images. In the movie, a theory emerges that the mystery woman might be a ghost trying to speak to Ben and Jane from beyond the grave. He is sceptical, she less so. Audiences will also have to indulge this conceit to get their money's worth.
"Well, spirit photography does actually exist," Taylor says. "There are sort of inexplicable images that have occurred on photographs ... Whether or not you wanna think that's, y'know, a person from the afterlife trying to send us a message is up to the individual. I'm not sure that spirit photography is something that I categorically believe or disbelieve in. I like to think that I just sort of remain open to the world of the supernatural."
It's clearly a popular theme in the Far East. In common with the spook-tastic Ring and Grudge films, Shutter is a Hollywood remake of an Asian box-office phenomenon, in this instance a 2004 Thai film of the same name.
"Well, in some senses it isn't just another remake of an Asian horror film," Taylor says. "What made this one stand out for me is that I think the bones of the story are still really interesting, regardless of whether it's a remake or not.
"What I liked about the Western remake is there's very much a shift in perspective ... in the original film it's very much driven from the male character's perspective. Our remake is more about her [Jane] kind of putting the pieces together.
"When I originally read the script I sort of thought, well, if you take the supernatural elements out of this, it's still interesting. It's still a fairly timeless story about a betrayal and about a secret and about a relationship."
Shutter is by no means a classic of its genre but it serves its purpose fairly well. Taylor made her first mark in Hollywood in a notable supporting role in Transformers -"I may as well have been a piece of prop in that film because it was really about the robots and about big explosions and not so much about me," she says - but she takes her chance to shine here, alongside the comparably watchable Jackson, with even more aplomb.
The film also has several effective scares. But the clues as to where the story is going may, for some, feel all but telegraphed.
"But this is made for a specific audience, I think, a fairly young demographic," Taylor says. "From what I've heard, those kids that this film was kind of made for have been really positive about it and suitably surprised by the twists.
"I think it was probably a conscious decision from the writer and the filmmakers that the film should kind of have those telegraphed moments because I think that's kind of satisfying in a genre like this. Y'know, you're not asking for that kind of Fight Club, completely blown out of the water, cerebrally challenging kind of thing; you're asking to have little hints and little kinda jabs all the way through the movie. I think there's enjoyment in that for some people, too."
It's clearly a popular theme in the Far East. In common with the spook-tastic Ring and Grudge films, Shutter is a Hollywood remake of an Asian box-office phenomenon, in this instance a 2004 Thai film of the same name.
"Well, in some senses it isn't just another remake of an Asian horror film," Taylor says. "What made this one stand out for me is that I think the bones of the story are still really interesting, regardless of whether it's a remake or not.
"What I liked about the Western remake is there's very much a shift in perspective ... in the original film it's very much driven from the male character's perspective. Our remake is more about her [Jane] kind of putting the pieces together.
"When I originally read the script I sort of thought, well, if you take the supernatural elements out of this, it's still interesting. It's still a fairly timeless story about a betrayal and about a secret and about a relationship."
Shutter is by no means a classic of its genre but it serves its purpose fairly well. Taylor made her first mark in Hollywood in a notable supporting role in Transformers -"I may as well have been a piece of prop in that film because it was really about the robots and about big explosions and not so much about me," she says - but she takes her chance to shine here, alongside the comparably watchable Jackson, with even more aplomb.
The film also has several effective scares. But the clues as to where the story is going may, for some, feel all but telegraphed.
"But this is made for a specific audience, I think, a fairly young demographic," Taylor says. "From what I've heard, those kids that this film was kind of made for have been really positive about it and suitably surprised by the twists.
"I think it was probably a conscious decision from the writer and the filmmakers that the film should kind of have those telegraphed moments because I think that's kind of satisfying in a genre like this. Y'know, you're not asking for that kind of Fight Club, completely blown out of the water, cerebrally challenging kind of thing; you're asking to have little hints and little kinda jabs all the way through the movie. I think there's enjoyment in that for some people, too."
No comments:
Post a Comment