shutter island

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island opens in less than a week and a new behind-the-scenes video has popped up, which you can check out after the jump. The creepy mental hospital pictured in the video is the setting for Laeta Kalogridis' story about two U.S. marshals who investigate the mysterious disappearance of a murderess from a hospital for the criminally insane, that looms like a fortress on the island.

Shutter Island stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson and Max von Sydow. Adding to the sinister atmosphere are Elias Koteas and Ted Levine--yes! Platinum Dunes' new Freddy Krueger, Jackie Earle Haley, also has a role.

The film is based on Dennis Lehane's book of the same name and contains many of the things Scorsese loves to play with: psychological twists, suspense and pulp/noir-ish tough guys. I've heard some horror fans arguing that this is more of a thriller and less of a horror film, but judging from the trailer alone there is enough evocative imagery and Gothic sensibility that makes the horror grade A-ok for me. Is anyone else reminded somewhat of Cronenberg's Spider?

Shutter Island opens in theaters Friday, February 19.

When the first trailer for Shutter Island hit, I believe the universal response was "Holy Crap, Martin Scorsese made a horror movie!" Sure, it had been known beforehand that his latest re-teaming with The Departed star Leonardo DiCaprio was going to be a thriller, but I don't think many (including those who have read the book) were expecting his 'cops investigate wrong-doings at a mental institute' film to look like a stylized, cold-blooded, psychological chiller. Though, in retrospect, if anyone had access to this list for Scorsese's "11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time", that prediction would have been a lot easier to make.

The Daily Beast has the full run down of Scorsese's picks, so I'll not copy and paste it here, but I would like to point out some interesting observations. First, his youngest selection, The Entity, was made in 1981, which begs the question as to what the director thinks of today's crop of horror movies; I'm guessing not a whole lot considering he's already excluded the mid-80s sweet spot of horror.

Second, more than half of his hat tips are to black-and-white films, which makes me wonder how differently Shutter Island might have looked without its meticulous color palette. Third, the majority of his picks revolve around fear of loss and isolationist settings, which are two favorite elements of mine that now have me jonesing for Shutter Island even harder than before.

Click over to The Daily Beast to see the complete selections, including scenes from all of them. And, of course, feel free to bemoan below about Martin Scorsese not giving any love to Troll 2.

We've good and bad news concerning release changes for two of the more anticipated studio horror titles still left on the '09 docket. Good news first? We can all now see Woody Harrelson gleefully dispatch hordes of re-animated corpses a week earlier: Zombieland jumps from its previous October 9th slot to October 2nd.

The bad news? The reason Columbia Pictures is jumping on the new date is because it was recently vacated by Paramount. Martin Scorsese's insane asylum thriller Shutter Island has slid all the way to February 19th, 2010. There's plenty of speculation as to the specifics behind this decision, but the consensus has less to do with the quality of the film and more to do with spreading the wealth. Shutter Island is likely to perform just as well in February as it would have in October, but a viable business model needs to make money all year round and Paramount's early 2010 slate was looking a bit sparse.

Huge bummer no doubt, but such are things in times of economic strife. But, hey, Zombieland early softens the sting a smidge, right?

Whoa. My pals over at Dread Central just tipped me off to the new trailer for Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, which opens on October, a date that suddenly can't come soon enough. I'm sure the press and publicists will try to call the flick a "thriller," but the movie has A) a creepy asylum in the middle of an isolated island, B) ghostly visions of some sort, C) a female murderer who's gone missing, and D) all sorts of unpleasant skeletons in apparently creaky closets.

Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) and adapted by Laeta Kalogridis (Alexander), Shutter Island stars Leonardo DiCaprio (in a Scorsese film??), Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, and Jackie Earle Haley. Solid ensemble! And Max Von Sydow?!?? Aw, this is definitely a horror flick! And Scorsese's no stranger to the spooky stuff: His Cape Fear re-do may indeed be more "thriller" than horror, but it's still pretty chilling. Plus his fantastic dark comedy After Hours is sort of like a nightmare mixed with a cartoon.

Click here for that very enticing trailer!