Surprisingly effective supernatural tale in which there's more to fear from the living than the dead.

Shutter has the look and feel of a proper J-horror film. Tokyo is seen as a series of gloomy gun metal skies. And the acting is more subdued than in Hollywood horror movies.

If Shutter is any indication, the reputation of professional photographers is still on the wane. Not only are photographs creepy, the film suggests, but so are photographers.

The photography hook gives Shutter the potential to be a genuinely creepy ghosts-in-the-machine story like the original "Pulse," or better still, a horror twist on "Blowup." But one effective scene lit solely by a camera flash isn't enough to rescue this from the J-horror slushpile.

Genuine scares are few and far between, and the climactic explanation for the ghost's appearances comes as something less than a revelation.