"This what I get for marrying a photographer!" she exclaims, as if the wedding dress and the photography equipment weren't clues enough. I guess we're in Brooklyn, because he says she's "the most beautiful blushing bride in Brooklyn," and she's the only bride in the room. And I guess these two swell kids are going to Japan, because Ben says oh-so-naturally, "Just think! The first stamp in your passport will be from Japan!" Once there, Ben informs Jane, just in case she forgot, "We only got a few days before I start work, so let's enjoy it!" Everybody up to speed?

Ben's a shutterbug on the same level as Carl Boehm in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, compulsively snapping shots of himself and Jane in their honeymoon cabin, which is in Japan, if the one lone stamp in Jane's passport is any indication. Driving from the woods to Tokyo, the honeymooners run over a creepy-looking pale girl and crack up their rental car. When the cops come, there's no body or blood in the road.

Strange and ghostly images, "spirit photographs," seem to mar all the photos that Ben takes for his job. Something unearthly is trying to manifest itself, haunting Jane and Ben. Is it the ghost of the girl they ran over? And what connection does this ghost have with Ben's really creepy steakhead pals Bruno (The Office's Denman) and Adam (Nip/Tuck's Hensley)? I guess Jane has seen The Grudge, because she's starting to get suspicious.

I can't believe it's not Shutter!

Shutter is a remake of a pretty good 2004 Thai flick by the same name. This remake could have been a nifty little thriller in its own right, but it seems like all involved are just going through the motions, from Luke Dawson's bland script to Masayuki (Infection) Ochiai's in-need-of-defibrillation direction to the "Did-I-hit-my-mark?" performances of the principals.

This is not to say that Shutter doesn't have one or two good points. Megumi Okina, who played Rika the unfortunate social worker in 2003's Ju-on: The Grudge and who also starred in Masayuki Ochiai's Tales of the Unusual, does a hell of a lot with a small role, and she's the central part of the few scenes in Shutter that really work. Veteran actor Kei Yamamoto also does great stuff with basically a walk-on. And even though the ghost in this movie is female, wears a dress and is pale, she's not a long-haired ripoff of Sadako from Hideo Nakata's original Ringu, which is a plus. The bustle of Tokyo is nicely captured in a few moments, and there's a scene that seems like a riff on the famous lovemaking scene from Don't Look Now, but rescored for fans of Fiest. Despite these glimmers, Shutter is just lifeless, with an amazing lack of dread. Even when really creepy scenes from the original are re-created, something's diluted in the translation.

This active and assertive blandness almost earned Shutter a C-. But something amazing happened. The last 10 or 15 minutes of Shutter are really stunningly good. Just as the movie was ending and I was looking longingly at the EXIT sign to the lobby, the writing, direction and acting of Shutter improved exponentially. I'm not kidding, those last few minutes have the punch of a really good one-act play. If you just cut the rest of the movie out, but kept all the pertinent information from the first three quarters of the movie as quick flashbacks, you'd have a great short film on your hands. When this comes on cable, TiVo it and just watch the ending. What you'll imagine the rest of the movie to be like before that point will be much better than the drudge I had to sit through.