“Shutter Island” Movie Trailer #2 Review

By our guest blogger, Gabrielle Corrado

No, you’re not suffering from a case of déjà vu--Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have indeed joined forces once again, this time for the thriller “Shutter Island,” based on the novel by "Mystic River" author Dennis LeHane. Much like “The Departed” and “Gangs of New York,” Scorsese has cast DiCaprio as the lead in the film (set to be released in February 19, 2010), which takes place in the 1950s on a remote island off the coast of Massachusetts. While I can understand the concerns of moviegoers who are growing slightly tired of the Scorsese-DiCaprio formula, I think that the film’s gripping and suspenseful trailer does an excellent job of assuaging the doubts of even the most skeptical critics.

DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo play U.S. marshals called to the island to investigate the disappearance of an inmate from a hospital for the criminally insane. While the hospital itself is a sufficiently terrifying structure, with its sprawling grounds and looming gray stone towers, its crumbling façade is nothing compared to the unspeakable occurrences within the hospital’s walls. Strange as it may sound, I’m particularly excited about the possibility of being genuinely scared while watching “Shutter Island”-- I feel that Scorsese is long overdue to direct another horror film. And while DiCaprio inhabits his role with the quiet but penetrating intensity that I, along with countless other moviegoers, have come to know and love, I eagerly look forward to watching the others in what I consider to be an extremely strong cast: Michelle Williams, Ben Kingsley and Emily Mortimer, to name a few.

The trailer allows us a brief but decidedly haunting look into the hospital, where it’s tough to decide who is more petrifying--the ghostly, vacant-looking mental patients or the cold, eerie doctors in charge of “helping” them. At one point in the trailer, we are asked, “Do you know what fear does to the mind?”  I’m confident that after seeing “Shutter Island,” I’ll be able to answer that question more eloquently.

View the second trailer for "Shutter Island" below. Thoughts?