Shutter Island (2010)

After an extended sabbatical I have returned, and I'm broadening my reviews to whatever the hell I feel like writing about. I'm not making any promises as to the frequency of my blogging, but I do promise everything will remain horror related, cynical, biased and offensive.


It feels like blasphemy to even insinuate that Scorsese directed a bad movie. As usual, I'm taking it a step further.

"Shutter Island" was such an atrocious, ridiculously predictable, un-thrilling piece of shit, I wish I could erase it from my memory just to go back to idolizing Scorsese the way I did but 24 short hours ago.

"Shitty Island,"...ahem, excuse me, "Shutter Island," stars Leonardo Di Caprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley and about a dozen other actors who you instantly recognize, but spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out where from, exactly. Don't get me wrong, this was my sole source of entertainment for the first two excruciating hours of this movie. It begins with two U.S. Marshals (Leo Di Caprio, Mark Ruffalo) who travel to an excluded island whose only occupants are patients of an institution for the criminally insane, and their staff of doctors and nurses. The supposed purpose of their visit is to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a potentially dangerous female patient. As soon as the Marshals arrive, it's obvious that the staff is determined to be less than cooperative, and the conspiracy begins.

There were endless problems with this movie, a few of which I feel the need to touch on. First off, Shutter Island was so overly riddled with hellish dreams, hellish flashbacks and... need I say it?... hellish hallucinations, one can only assume the purpose of these would be to distract the viewer from the predictable plot and sub par performances from a fairly well-esteemed cast. And when I say predictable, I mean it took a butt load of self control not to start yelling at the characters...er...character (Teddy Daniels played by Leonardo Di Caprio) halfway through the film, not only to release some pent-up frustration, but with the hope of shedding some light on something people call "common sense."

In conclusion, I feel like I should say something positive about this ridiculous excuse for a psychological thriller/crime drama/intelligent movie billed as a horror, but I'd be lying if I said anything other than that the best part of this movie was the trailer for the Iron Man sequel.

I'm giving this movie a 4/10 because the setting was mildly creepy, and that's being generous.