Shutter Island Review

Written by: Googopqp   

Martin Scorsese and horror film? You don't hear that everyday....But in all honestly its not a full out horror film, its what the mainstream public would refer to as "thriller" but fuck that...its a horror film, and its good!

Shutter Island follows Teddy Daniels, played by Leonardo DeCaprio. Teddy is a US Marshall and is there to help find a missing woman at a hospital for the criminally insane. But once he gets there he finds things aren't as simple as they seem. No one is talking and he can't seem to find out any information, so Teddy and his new partner set out to find the truth. But will he be able to find the truth?

Its hard to summarize this movie, because you have to be rather selective with your words, because one miss word and you might give something away. So theres a simple and nice little summarization. :) Now to the review.

Anyways, now that my rambling is over, what did I think of Shutter Island? I thought it was pretty fucking great! So far 2010 is a great year for horror. First Daybreakers and now this, I'm feeling good about this year. But why did I like this? Well, I think it has something to do with the captivating story mixed with the brilliant direction for a master and the great acting from the whole cast. That could be some of the reason. But I think what did me in was the whole feel of the film, and how it played out so nicely. But the one thing I didn't like, was that (for me anyways) the ending was predictable :/ Which was a bit of a downer, not the whole ending but part of it anyways.

This film also had a rather awesome score to it, it was a sort of epic music that made even driving amazing, and I always love good music in a horror film. Its always fitting, especially to a film of this stature.

The acting, as I said, is very good. Leonardo DeCaprio really can't be a bad actor, he puts much feeling into his characters, all of them, and its just fun to watch him go crazy. Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, and Jackie Earle Haley are also big standouts in this movie, they all also did very good.

The effects in the movie, were mostly just props and some CGI, looked rather disturbing to be honest. The CGI only looks decent, but its very obviously CGI, but most of the props in this movie are little nasty bodies from concentration camps and what not and it makes for a rather dark and disturbing over tone to the movie that I rather liked. The gore in it is not very plentiful (but its not a gore film obviously) but what they show is pretty icky sticky (?) and looks good with the shoots in the film.

Speaking of shots, the cinematography and some of the angles and shots in the movie are very amazing. Scorsese shows his talents and his skill of his many years of a master director and he does it prominitely and with great talent. I still aploud Scorsese and he is still one of my favorite directors, glad to see him making a horror film as well!

Overall, Shutter Island is a great film and I would really recommend checking it out, its got a good story, very good acting and direction and is shot but the master who is Scorsese. Go check it out. I give Shutter Island n 8/10!!!!

-Dustin "Googopqp" M.