Not that it’s anything to brag about, but I saw the new movie Shutter not once, but twice this weekend! It was pretty good, if you like movies like The Ring and The Grudge. There are a few other movies people say Shutter is like, but I haven’t seen them. It did remind me a lot of The Ring – they were both super-natural ghost stories. I should have known I’d like it, at least that I’d like it better than Doomsday, because the guy who gave Doomsday an “A” rating on movies.com gave Shutter a “D”! I’m starting to think he’s a moron. I gave you the quote he made about Doomsday in a previous post of mine; he talked about how great all the violence was, yada, yada, so just to prove his idiocy, here is a snippet of what he thought of Shutter:
“As unfrightening PG-13 horror films go, this unfrightening PG-13 horror film is the most unfrightening of the year. It’s even more unfrightening than The Eye, which featured such unfrightening scenes as Jessica Alba yelling into an oven. This one has unfrightening scenes of Joshua Jackson sitting in a chair. Okay, there is one jumpy moment. That happens when Joshua Jackson turns around really fast in that chair. All the 11 year-olds in the audience went, “AUUGGH!” when that part happened. So if you’re 11, then that part is really going to freak you out.”
So according to the movies.com review guy, a movie is not good or scary if it doesn’t have at least 3 decapitations, exploding animals, and some cannibalism. Whatever. He does have a point though – the 11-year-old in the theater with us was scared silly – which brings me to the reason we saw it twice in one day…
Grandma was in town for a visit. Despite the impending snow storm (again), she was able to travel the 200+ miles to see her grandchildren, thank goodness. Who would have believed that we’d have to deal with Grandma almost having to cancel her spring break trip to Ohio because of still more SNOW! Thank you, Grandma, for taking the time and energy it took to come early to ensure the special time you were able to spend with the girls wasn’t ruined by yet another snow storm. So anyway, with Grandma being in town, that left Hubby and I with a whole afternoon and evening to ourselves! Snowstorm or not, we were going to make the most of it… So we saw a matinee of Shutter, which we enjoyed. It wasn’t scary, comes no where close to the creepiness of The Ring, but it was entertaining, and it saved itself from getting unbearably cheesy several times… A lot of the reviewers didn’t like it, but I think they’re just sick of the whole PG13-Asian-horror-movie-remake genre. As a side effect of the PG13 rating, during our matinee, there were obnoxious teenagers in the theater. Their laughing and running up and down the aisles wasn’t totally obscene, but it did take away from some of the enjoyment of a horror movie. When they left the movie at the end, they had a younger boy with them who looked scared beyond belief. I think maybe all the laughing and whatnot was because they were actually really nervous and scared. So, when we explained their antics to the movie theater manager, they were completely understanding and told us we could go ahead and see it again. I didn’t really catch anything that I missed the first time (except for one itty bitty scene where I dozed yet again), but it was fun to watch a horror movie again that no one else in the theater had seen yet because it was its first day out in the theaters – you knew when the scary parts were coming and could watch the whole theater jump and gasp.
If you are a fan of the PG13-Asian-horror-movie-remake genre, I think you’ll like Shutter. If not, it might not be what you’re looking for in a movie, unless you’re between the ages of 14-23.
You know, mentioning kids seeing this PG-13 movie reminds me of the other day when I was subbing for an eighth grade class. We were meeting in the LMC because they were working on a project, and during one period a sixth-grader came in by himself with some work. Since he knew me some subbing in his 5th grade class last year, I was able to ask him why he was in the LMC (ordinarily I would have just ignored him since he wasn’t a part of my class and was being taken care of by the librarians). Apparently his science class was watching a PG-13 movie and his parents wouldn’t let him see it. I never asked what movie it was though.
Hmmm… I am curious about what pg13 movie they’d feel needed to be shown to 6th graders. There’s already some questionable “curriculum” in the school system that we are thinking of pulling our kids out of… I don’t want them to stick out for that and be made fun of, but there are some things that should be left to the parents to teach, I think.