Shutter

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Shutter is a 2004 Thai horror film by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom. It focuses a on young couple, Tun and Jane, who, after being involved in a hit-and-run accident, find themselves menaced by the ghost of a young woman, who they discover to be called Natre, most prominently in mysterious and ghostly images seen in photographer Tun's developed pictures. It soon becomes clear that there is a lot more to these images and hauntings than meets the eye, however, and Tun himself is hiding many dark secrets...

The film was remade in 2007 as a Tamil film called Sivi, and as a 2008 American film, also titled Shutter.

Tropes used in Shutter include:
  • Asshole Victim: All of Tun's friends.
  • Camera Fiend - Tun, obviously.
  • Downer Ending
  • The Danza - Megumi Okina as Megumi Tanaka.
  • Face Revealing Turn - In a nightmare of Tun's, he is walking towards who he believes to be Jane. He can only see the back of her. Suddenly, she starts coughing up blood, and then she turns around to reveal Natre, who then starts spitting out her own teeth as well.
  • A Fate Worse Than Death - The ending, for Tun.
  • Foreign Remake - The Tamil and US remakes.
  • Four Is Death - There is a scene in which Tun is running down several flights of stairs to escape Natre. However, no matter which floor he stops at, it is always "Level 4".
  • Ghostly Goals - Natre is a blend of both types.
  • Hey, It's That Guy! - In the American remake, Roy Anderson is a rapist.
  • Jump Scare
  • Karmic Death: All of Tun's friends suffer this.
  • Matchlight Danger Revelation: The scene in the pitch-black room with the flashing camera.
  • Mirror Scare
  • Mummies At the Dinner Table: Natre's mother still keeps her daughter's decomposing corpse in her (Natre's) bed. She is eventually buried, with everyone hoping that this act will put her spirit at peace. It doesn't.
  • Peek-a-Boo Corpse: It's pretty easy to see coming, but it still manages to be extremely jarring.
  • The Reveal - This film contains several, all centering around Natre. As it turns out, Natre was not killed in the hit-and-run accident - she had been dead a long time prior to that. (It can be assumed that what they hit was Natre's ghost, who was beginning her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.) She had, in fact, killed herself by jumping off of a hospital roof, after previously attempting suicide by slitting her wrists. So, why is she seeking revenge, if she wasn't killed in a hit-and-run? Well, it turns out that Tun knew her. Knew her very well. He went to college with her, and started dating her. Natre fell deeply in love with him, but Tun kept their relationship a secret, even from his closest friends, due to everyone else finding the quiet, unassuming Natre to be "weird". He didn't love her, although he did care about her a lot. However, something very bad happened to her, causing Natre to fall into a deep depression and become suicidal, and shortly after that, Tun dumped her. Then, towards the end of the film, the entire truth is revealed: Natre became depressed and eventually killed herself because of Tun's friends holding her down and raping her one night. To add insult to injury, when Tun walked in on them, instead of helping her, chose to protect his friends instead by providing photos of the poor, traumatised Natre to his friends so that they could use them against her. Natre's rage is perfectly justified, it seems. Then, near the very end of the film, the reasons for Tun's neck ache and increased weight are revealed: Natre's spirit has been sitting on his shoulders the whole time, something which is only revealed when he takes a picture of himself. The end of the film shows that she will never leave him.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge
  • Room Full of Crazy: in the American version. When it's revealed that Ritsuo's been publishing fake Spooky Photographs, he shows Jane a room full of real ones.
  • Spooky Photographs - The first type, all the way.
  • Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl - Natre.
  • Twist Ending
  • What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: That's quite a weight you're carrying there, Tun. And she will never ever leave you.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Jane does this to Tun towards the end, when she discovers just what happened to make Natre so deeply vengeful.
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