The Big Screen | Scorcese thriller exudes creepiness

Martin Scorsese's opus Shutter Island can be summed up in two words: gothic noir. The "noir" comes from the rugged investigators in trench coats, the whodunnit mystery and a melodramatic score reminiscent of the days of Bogart and Bergman. The "gothic" comes from the insane asylum housed on a shadowy island, dank labyrinthine corridors draped in shadows and the ominous rumble of storm clouds brewing over the horizon. With building blocks like these, it's a guarantee that a movie will boil down to another two words: pure awesomeness.

On principle, you have to like this movie. It's The Big Sleep meets Dracula meets Chinatown meets Psycho, borrowing instantly familiar conventions from both mystery and horror and melding them into a delicious generic hybrid. You also have to like this movie because it's by Martin freakin' Scorsese and stars Leonardo freakin' DiCaprio. It's not like they've collaborated on any great movies recently. Oh wait, except for a couple of award-winning and celebrated films like The Departed, Gangs of New York and The Aviator. And when the likes of Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow and Emily Mortimer pop up in the credits too, it just screams D-list cast, am I right?

Granted, it's possible for a movie's whole to not equal the sum of its parts, but that's not in the cards for Shutter Island. Everything adds up sublimely, from the trench coats to the storm clouds on the horizon to Leonardo freakin' DiCaprio. All the pieces of the puzzle fuse together to spin a phenomenal yarn, masterfully adapted from the Dennis Lehane novel of the same name. The audience is put in the shoes of young Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio), who is sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a mental asylum for the criminally insane. When he and his partner (Mark Ruffalo) step off of the ferry onto the titular island, they enter a thoroughly unsettling world. It is populated by a sinister asylum director (Kingsley), a shady collection of doctors and staff members, patients who seem scared out of their wits and, in general, secrets and shadows lurking around every corner. Equally as mysterious as the case at hand is Teddy's backstory; this dude certainly has skeletons lurking in his closets, as we learn through flashbacks and dream sequences. As the protagonist's past and the investigation at the asylum intertwine, it becomes more than apparent that there is something very fishy going on at Shutter Island…something very fishy indeed.

Shutter Island tells a compelling story, but what really drives the movie is a palpable atmosphere of terror. The film's aesthetic is jaw-dropping. This baby is all about the visceral quality of the environments, each one more chill-inducing than the last. There is the ominous lighthouse towering over the island's shores and silhouetted against gray skies and underscored by the ever-present howl of the harsh sea winds. There are the dark hallways of Ward C, which we are told contain the most damaged patients. There, the flickering lamp bulbs that feebly light the musty corridors are complemented by the whispers and moans of emaciated shadows behind cell doors. The director's plush fire-lit home looks like it came straight out of Russel Baker's Masterpiece Theater or an Agatha Christie novel, the flames from the hearth casting an insidious glow on the lavish décor. Everything just exudes creepiness.

Despite the spookiness, this is less of a horror movie per se than a psychological thriller. The "psychological" aspect works for the most part: our glimpses into the protagonist's psyche via flashbacks and dream sequences are beautifully shot, and are rife with metaphor and subtext. But the movie also goes for some of the more unfortunate sucker-punch twists psychological thrillers are prone to do. It would be great to elaborate on that, but it would be quite damnable of me to give out spoilers. Let's suffice it to say that it's ironic that a movie uses genre conventions so successfully, yet it is undone by them at the same time.

Shutter Island has been in theaters for over a month, making it weird that this review is being published now. But, actually, that I'm still comfortable with writing this five weeks too late is a testament to this flick's quality. Okay, so actually I wasn't thrilled by the idea of going to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid or The Bounty Hunter this weekend. And, let's be real, I was too busy picnicking on the quad on Sunday to be bothered to take a trip to the mall. Bottom line: if you haven't seen Shutter Island yet, do it ASAP. The beautiful spring weather will still be here when you're done!

—Erik Lorenzsonn '12 is writing a bi-weekly column on movies and their meanings. He is the Arts Editor.