The Duke On "Shutter"

Asian horror, in so far as The Duke would dare for even a second to venture, is the crack cocaine of contemporary cinema. Those first few cautious hits, those first whiffs of Ringu or Ju-On or maybe even the first forty minutes of The Eye, that shit gets a fella wired to the back of the nuts on nothing but glee and surprise and shit-yourself terrorosity. He stays up all night, contemplating the revelation he has experienced. He phones friends and babbles on in a frenzy of incoherent phrases and bizarre references.

Following these sense-molesting episodes, he finds he wants more, more you motherfuckers, and so scours the earth from here to Pluto in search of even greater highs and lows. Who's gonna stand in his way? Who's gonna slap him cross the eyes and say "Get the fuck out my crack-den you sonnabitch, you had enough already!" Who would wish to be so unspeakably cruel?

What happens is that the crack keeps flowin, a fella keeps getting the fixes. Here, man, try this shit, goes by the name of Kairo. Take a bag of this here Séance while you're at it. How bout you roll up a twenty and snort yourself a skull-full of the Mermaid In A Motherfucking Manhole, too?

But it ain't ever gonna last, man.

What happens is that it takes more and more and more for to get even a glimmer of the sorta hit administered when Audition shot its spunk into a fella's bloodstream. Nonsense like Phone just ain't gonna do the trick.

Maybe back in the day, maybe when a man was as high on the sense of discovery as anything else, maybe back then the likes of Dark Water would've had a fella clinging to the light-shades for fear of tumbling onto the jagged rocks poking through the carpet.

As the years go on, though, as the flicks come and go and the sight of a pale-faced lady clambering down the stairs becomes something to anticipate with contempt rather than giddy delight, a man finds the same old crack just ain't gonna suffice.

Crack that may once have been deemed perfectly reasonable, that would've probably been welcomed with open nostrils, now it's just another above-average hit, is all it is, pretty much the same as most other hits nowadays. Maybe it could've been a contender for Top Five Hits Of All Time back in the day, we'll never fucking know. Now, though, it's lucky to make it into the Top Five Hits This Afternoon.

And so we come to Shutter.

Article Author: Duke De Mondo

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