I'm not a huge "scary movie" / horror fan, and I usually prefer films that stay away from the supernatural realm. So, going into Shutter Island I was only cautiously optimistic since it was a Martin Scorsese movie, and he had been heartily endorsed by LOST co-creator Damon Lindelof.
Shutter Island is a movie of deception, misdirection, and outright subterfuge. The deception starts with the movie trailer. This is not a horror film. It's not a scary film. Occasionally a little gruesome and disturbing, yes, but not scary. There is also nothing supernatural going on in the film. Scenes that appear supernatural happen only in Teddy's dreams. The opening shots of the film are overlayed by music that sounds like it's taken directly from The Shining. The audience is led to believe they're watching something scary as a ferry cuts its way through dense fog. Throughout the film, whenever this "scary" music occurs (including some prepared piano), it builds only to come to an abrupt conclusion and reveal something mundane. The lone "cause the audience to jump" moment comes from an unexpected gunshot blast out of frame at loud volume. The soundtrack will often pay homage to Psycho's strings-only sound, although the director mentions only Vertigo and Spellbound as influences.
It's not until late in the film that the viewer realizes Scorsese is presenting a situation where the realities of both the audience and DiCaprio's Teddy Daniels are subverted. Before I go any further, I need to reveal the twist, so this will be where the spoilers really start. Teddy thinks he's attempting to uncover a conspiracy on the island and that anyone who gets too close to declared insane and kept there. Reality as it's presented in not an effort to convince Teddy he's crazy and keep him there. He really does live in his own created reality where he's still a Federal Marshall attempting to solve the escape of a patient from a locked room. The doctors have decided to let him play out his fantasy to its conclusion in hopes that when he finds nothing treacherous happening on the island he will snap out of his fantasy. Teddy starts seeing things while awake that don't make sense as he withdraws from his medication. I know, it sounds like a cliché. In fact it is, but the reason it works in this film is, since it is a cliché, everyone stays away from that story in favor of conspiracies in order to attempt not being predictable (Flight Plan?). So it seems to me that this type of story has come full circle. It was done so much in the past, abandoned and is now no longer expected. The few people who said they guessed the ending in the first ten minutes are not being honest. Yes, that thought it going to cross the mind of any experienced filmgoer, but surely Scorsese isn't going to go that route, right?! THAT's why it works in this case. I was so convinced it wouldn't end that way, then even in the seconds before the credits rolled, I was still waiting for the second twist showing that it really was a conspiracy designed to keep this Marshall from discovering the truth about the island. As it turns out, Teddy's only enemy is himself and we're made to experience Teddy's devastation in accepting his own life, while we're still in denial that he's a patient in the hospital.
The greatest achievement of the film is that it keeps your mind circling for hours after it ends. Of the things we saw on the screen, how much was real, and how much was created by Teddy (real name Andrew Laeddis)? His mind is unable to deal with the fact that he killed his wife after she killed their three children. Some entire characters are in his head, the "escaped patient" is a nurse, and his new partner is actually his doctor while he projects details of his own life onto others (whether they exist or not).
The Vertigo influence is obvious as Teddy climbs the spiral staircase of a lighthouse towards the climax of the film, once and for all to find no nefarious goings-on, only his own case history. In Vertigo, two people stage a false reality to convince Scotty of something that isn't true. In Shutter Island, a hundred people allow Teddy to stage his own false reality to try to convince him of what is true.
It remains to be seen what the rewatchability of this film will be. It's unfortunate that it's already suffering a backlash and being called Scorsese's worst film (by a few bloggers, not everyone...I think the B average is fair). In a lot of ways, (all due credit to Dennis Lahane, whose book I haven't yet read) it's as if Scorsese has remade a 1950's B-movie. While it may not win any awards, I can't see much of an argument that Shutter Island isn't an entertaining, engaging, technical achievement of a period piece. It deserves to be appreciated for what it is (thoroughly Scorsese, including his quick curved track shot around a character), and not for what people wanted it to be.
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