Shutter Island.
I was half-excited for this film, an adaptation of a book I’ve never heard of because I am an uncultured swine. Or it’s unreadable, generic pap…one of the two. The film is coming out in a bit of a dry season for good cinema, with nothing on the schedule really catching my eye. ‘The Crazies’ is out could be interesting, but I missed any hype there might have been for that, and a few lacklustre reviews means I’ll probably wait a few months for Lovefilm to drop it at my doorstep. Kevin Smith’s next directorial shot, ‘Cop Out’, is miles off because I happen to live in the UK and Warner Bros hates me. No other films have really jumped on to my radar in a meaningful way. ‘Alison Wonderland’ looks like a ridiculous CGI-ridden mess, and the pairing of Burton and Depp is wearing as thin as a celebrity girlfriend.
Plus the last film I dragged myself to was ‘The Wolfman’, in which Del Toro gives a masterclass of looking thoroughly bored and Hugo Weaving plays a talking moustache. It was so horribly bad I wanted to, ironically, grow fur and maul everyone.
So when I saw Shutter Island was out this week, I was a little bit interested. I made plans to go and see it, checked times, and sat feeling smug that I had an alterative to spending my Friday night eating pizza and throwing Southern Comfort down my throat. My liver did a little dance. I also re-watched the trailer, which I first saw before a screening of ‘Moon’, and it was suitably creepy, building tension days before I would even see the film proper. I was very interested. I love those precious few ghost movies that mess with your head and burrow into your psyche so you jump at every shadow on the way home. I even thought ‘The Sixth Sense’ was good, though it wasn’t exactly a horror film. There are precious few of these films, because even when they start off well, they’re usually ruined by a bloody stupid plot twist towards the end.
Except I will now never bother to watch ‘Shutter Island’, and this pre-emptive review (er…preview?) will tell you why. I’ll try not to swear loads, but can’t promise anything. Also, obviously, spoiler alert.
Yes, I read the story outline on Wikipedia. Couldn’t help it. I effectively ruined the film for myself and I’m so incredibly glad I did, because it would have only made me angry. The ending is the type you joke about over your popcorn during the trailers, pre-film and post-’Dallas’. You’ll be whispering quietly, hazarding guesses at what direction the plot will take, and someone will undoubtedly say “It’s all a dream! DiCaprio will wake up in the shower!” and you’ll all politely laugh at your friends rubbish joke.
Now, it isn’t exactly that, but it’s about on par. Basically, the story decides to eat itself and winds up screaming “It’s all in his head!”, whilst shoving it’s foot firmly down it’s own throat. Faux-psychology wrapped up in a supposedly intriguing plot that makes me want to throw up on whatever bored writer thought ‘Yep, that’ll wrap it up nicely’. It’s a twist designed to shock you, much like “Bruce is dead!” in The Sixth Sense. Except all it really does is kill the rest of the film, making all the scares up to that point entirely redundant. As it’s all in his head, it doesn’t even nearly exist, and only he sees it…so what, exactly, are you being scared of? The notion that some other man’s lack of marbles is giving him a bit of a shiver? Ooo.
If a man approached you in the street, and told you the most harrowing tale you could ever imagine, full of terrifying depravity and laced with supernatural happenings, and somehow managed to convince you it was all entirely real, but then ended by saying something like “and that’s when I woke up!”, would you be pleased? You’d be thrown back into reality, and you’d be pissed off at the crazy man for wasting your time. Dreams are boring when recountered, regardless of the content. Do you really want to give upwards of £7 to a cinema so you can learn that, no matter how expertly it was told, a mental patient had a bit of a nightmare?
Assuming it was a well made flick (which, being Scorsese, it probably is), it’s likely the film doesn’t exactly hint at it before the final reveal, otherwise it’d ruin the movie even more. So it might be entertaining right up until the final scene, but if I’d been sat in the cinema, gripped by every scene up to that point, I’d have been absolutely livid by the pointlessness of the ending. Saying “It’s all in his head” negates any impact the film might have had up to that point, and effectively kills what interest I’d had. Knowing full well it’ll send me into an irate rage, I’m going to give it a miss. They should put a warning on the poster, underneatht the tagline: “Warning: The Ending Is Retarded”. You could have the best sex of your life, but if your partner hops off you before climax, and slaps you in the face, you wouldn’t be ecstatic about it. Well, unless you’re into that. Whatever. Anyway.
It makes me angry simply because they could have mentioned it at the start, and we could have all gone home early. It means every scene that preceeded the big finale was rubbish, pointless, and only the character played by DiCaprio knew any of it was going on. I’d be expecting to see people wandering around with cups of coffee, reading the newspaper whilst he ran around screaming and pointing at figments of his own imagination. Imagine the exact same film from another characters point of view (except, maybe, for any of the ghosts, as they don’t exist at all). Say, one of the doctors in the mental home. There might be a layer of sinister intent to the whole thing, but you’d be watching Leo chase around an innocuous building, probably humming his own dramatic soundtrack.
“It’s time for your meds, Leo. Sit still a second…”
“NO! I can’t! I must avenge my dead wife! Dum dum, dum dum dum dum…do dooooooo dum dum dummmm…”
The reason I hate this sort of ending is because it reeks of laziness – I understand it’s based on a book that probably uses the same tired ending, and I am basing my entire opinion on a Wikipedia plot summary, but still. Why can’t we just have a straight-up ghost story, one that takes all the shocks, scares and psychological trauma of the genre and then doesn’t fuck it up at the end? No trickery, no contrived Scooby-Doo twists where the mask is yanked off, revealing a series of utterly fucking useless events beneath the glossy, latex sheen. I want a horror film that uses ghosts to their full, nerve-shredding potential, without a caveat at the end that drags them back in to the real world with a boring, often obviously-signposted explanation, or into the mind of someone you don’t really care about. Or if you are going to do that, make it interesting. Watching a film that largely takes place inside a man’s head, helping him deal with his problems and come out of it a better man at the end? That’s not scary. That’s a session on a psychologists couch.
And ‘Mirrors’, ‘House On Haunted Hill’, et al don’t count, because they were shit.
I want to be scared without having to wait around to have the film ruined for me.
I think, basically, I just want to sit in a cinema and play Silent Hill 2.
Like
