Shutter Island

Just about the last project you’d expect from Scorsese would be a hallucinatory horror film on the order of The Shining, but with Shutter Island, the director has made a film that has the simple, elemental power to scare people. In its fantastical interludes and privileging of emotion over logic, Shutter Island may be the closest Scorsese has come to the spirit of his idol Michael Powell, whose Red Shoes is evoked on more than one occasion. This proudly old-fashioned yet highly personal movie also takes a new angle on the very Scorsesean subject of guilt—the way it might have been portrayed in Freud-obsessed ’40s Hollywood. DVD consumers know that Marty never does extra scenes.

• More DVD reviews
• More Film articles