Shutter Island

Leonardo DiCaprio is losing his  mind, again. In the new trailer for Shutter Island, his latest  collaboration with director Martin Scorsese (which opens in theaters October 2),  DiCaprio plays a U.S. Deputy Marshall who investigates mysterious happenings at  a mental hospital for the criminally insane and finds himself trapped inside. If  marital unease lead to the actor’s meltdowns in Revolutionary Road, this  time he’s got hallucinogenic drugs and a paranoid conspiracy bearing down on his  brain. “Pull yourself together, Teddy!” he yells at himself, in one of the  clip’s telling moments.

It’s hard to watch the  heart-thumping trailer and not think of prior DiCaprio outings: the  Boston-accent of The Departed, the actor and director’s last successful  partnership; the ominous secluded island of The Beach. But Scorsese looks  like he’s moving into new territory here: With glimpses of eerie  deformed-looking patients, bizarre dream sequences and screams on the  soundtrack, this may be the Oscar-winning maverick’s first foray since 1991’s Cape Fear into anything that resembles horror.
 
Described  by author Denis Lehane (Mystic River) as a cross  between Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the books of the Bronte  sisters (Wuthering Heights), the 2003 novel on which the film is based  received plenty of critical acclaim (The  New York Times called it “startlingly original,” and a “deft suspenseful  thriller”). If Scorsese’s adaptation is as tense and unnerving as this trailer  suggests, he and DiCaprio may also find themselves with another hit on their  hands.