Gotta love ACMI! You come down to Melbourne on a random weekend and find that all of the cinemas are playing various combinations of the same films and that you’ve seen most of them at the Melbourne Film Festival. ACMI, in contrast, is showing a 2004 classic Thai horror film Shutter. What a gem!

I knew nothing about this, just that I like horror films from non-English-speaking countries, particularly if they have stood the test of two decades to still be considered worthy. It might not seem like a new premise – a young photographer after being involved in a car accident where a woman may or may not have been killed finds that his photos are inhabited by a ghostly presence. What I loved about it was its ability to build story, and character and a pleasing finale that didn’t leave you feeling letdown.

Our two protagonists are photographer Tun (Ananda Everingham) and his newest girlfriend Jane (Natthaweeranuch Thongmee). Tun has a group of ex-college friends who are all a bit loud and juvenile, getting together to drink and brag about how they go on the prowl for girls. Even married Tonn (Unnop Chanpaibool) jokes about it.

Tun seems to be cut from a more sensitive cloth and on the way home from a boozy dinner with the boys, with girlfriend Jane driving, she is momentarily distracted as they profess their love for each other – never take your eyes off the road, when you’re in a horror movie folks – and she hits a girl and crashes her car.

Tun, panicking, we think, at getting caught (we know better later), urges her to drive off and all seems to be well, albeit with Jane having a more significant guilty conscience than him, until his photos begin to be affected.

There’s a backstory that we are given in small, slow, pleasing increments. There are some really good jump scares, and some great set pieces that reminded me of Ringu (1998) in their otherworldly, unsettling spookiness.

Searching for information about this film I noticed that there is a an American version of the same name, I assume this is a remake and it would be interesting to see how it compares. Although we thoroughly believe the horror is a dead girl, we find out that it is something really quite different and this I can see is something that would translate well across many patriarchal countries.

The closing scenes are powerful both visually and in how they resonate.