Martin Scorsese traverses new territory on Shutter Island where Gothic horror, Nazi atrocities and mad scientists set the tone for a truly creepy nail biter.  Set in 1954, just scant years after the liberation of Dachau, and during the Cold War, it unearths rumoured stories of government experiments performed on mental patients in North America.  Shutter Island leads us on a dark and anxious sojourn into the tangled woods of the human soul.

Leonardo Di Caprio is U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels is prone to migraine headaches while he grieves the death of his wife.  But he sets out over eleven miles of choppy seas to the isolated and imposing Shutter Island, where Ashecliffe Mental Hospital operates.  It’s set in an impenetrable Civil War era fort that often loses electrical power and reverts to primeval darkness.

A dangerous female patient has escaped the inescapable and is presumed to be hiding somewhere on the island.  Daniels’ job is to find her, but he has another, personal reason for going there.  His partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) is obviously concerned for him, constantly asking if he is okay.

But Daniels hits a wall in his efforts to uncover the truth.  Hospital officials refuse to allow access to records for their investigation and he decides it’s not worth staying.  But the truth is that he is frightened.  He and Chuck plan to leave the next morning but a hurricane whips up the ocean stranding them indefinitely.  Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) offers sympathy and help but there is a sinister air about him.  And Dr. Naehring (Max Von Sydow) makes no pretence of sympathy and Daniels comes to believe he is an escaped Nazi intent on furthering human experiments begun in the concentration camps.

Scorsese’s casting is just about perfect.  Di Caprio is un-self-consciously troubled and haggard, and keeps his terror just under wraps, although his physical ailments give him away.  His scenes as a US soldier liberating Dachau are memorable.

Michelle Williams is positively translucently radiant here, as an ideal, a woman who appears in Daniels dreams to deliver warnings.  Williams, who is a superb young actress, gives a haunting, breathtaking performance.  Jackie Earle Haley, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Ted Levine, Elias Koteas, and John Carroll Lynch form a stellar supporting cast, each with defined individuality and his own big moments.  These are major talents doing wonderful things with smaller roles, under Scorsese’s direction.

Dread rises in small increments and the story moves along nicely.  Anxiety is almost excruciating at times, as new horrors are revealed or suggested.  But the third act begins to wear, becoming increasingly complex, layering red herrings and cheese in a stack of improbabilities.  I am reminded of that ageless chestnut from F. Murray Abraham - “Too many notes!”  But until that point, the film is a steady, nerve chilling decent into human suffering.

Shutter Island may do solid repeat business so fans can re-piece the story together with new knowledge.  Nice play Marty!