The still-strong Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese’s best weekend debut ever, will see fresh competition Friday in the form of fellow horror The Crazies and the Bruce Willis comedy Cop Out, while KinoSmith is targeting arts-minded moviegoers with Lixin Fan’s acclaimed Last Train Home.

Alliance Films is releasing Crazies — a remake of the 1973 George Romero feature — on 217 screens, while U.S. distributor Overture Films will open the film, about a small town plagued by insanity, on a reported 2,200. Countering Crazies is Kevin Smith’s Cop Out, featuring Willis and Tracy Morgan as NYPD cops on the trail of a rare, stolen baseball card, on 3,100 North American screens.

Shutter Island rang in US$41 million in its opening weekend and was nearing $50 million at the start of week two for Paramount.

EyeSteelFilm’s latest doc Last Train Home, which recently bowed at Sundance, moves into English Canada Friday where it will play at Toronto’s Varsity Cinemas via KinoSmith. The film, about a Chinese family’s struggle to stay together amid the country’s booming economy, opens in Vancouver next week.

Also opening Friday

• Alliance also has the well-timed drama The Messenger, featuring Woody Harrelson in an Oscar-nominated role as an officer with the U.S. Army’s Casualty Notification service. It opens on one screen each in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Harrelson is up for the best supporting actor Oscar, to be handed out March 7.

• Mongrel Media is sending Chilean director Sebastián Silva’s acclaimed drama The Maid to Toronto’s Canada Square, with plans to open in other cities throughout the winter and spring. The film, about a live-in maid’s life with a wealthy family, garnered the Grand Jury prize at Sundance.

Meanwhile, Cineplex Entertainment is ‘absolutely moving forward’ with the March 5 release of Tim Burton’s 3D fantasy Alice in Wonderland, according to spokesperson Pat Marshall. She says the country’s largest exhibitor had no plans to follow the lead of Odeon in the U.K., which threatened to boycott the release because of its short 12-week DVD window. The film will now be released in theaters in the U.K., Ireland and other territories next week as originally planned.