The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers made a splash with his re-imagining of ghost-story informed horror, The Witch and follows that up here with a gritty, grim period black-comedy/existential horror film – The Lighthouse.

The psychological horror film is making a comeback and the timing is perfect – these are uncertain times, murky, confusing and no amount of ghouls and gremlins can seem more frightening than this alleged ‘real’ world around us.

Hereditary director Ari Aster is working in the same space – following up recently with the fascinating, macabre, eerie Midsommar and you could argue that comedian-turned-auteur Jordan Peele is working in the same sort of space also with both Get Out and Us. There are other examples of course and I’d include Darren Aronofsky as a director that works within that realm – and certainly his Mother! was part of the renewed interest in this cinematic subgenre. (At least for me).

The Lighthouse is something else though – a film so instantly alluring due to its technical virtuosity and restrictions (square ratio, black and white, a two-hander for Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, vivid sound design and a brilliant score by Mark Korven) and simultaneously repugnant: It’s both arty and farty as crusty old sea dog Thomas Wake (Dafoe) breaks wind but never character; we all but smell his foulness as we’re forced to watch him spit food to sit in his seaweed-like beard.

There’s no point to The Lighthouse. At all. Which is going to be a deterrent for some – but I’d argue that it becomes the film’s chief strength. Well, that and the towering performances by Dafoe and Robert Pattinson (who plays Ephraim Winslow, a contract wickie that Wake forces all the hard slog on). Winslow wanks to a scrimshaw of a mermaid, has visions of tentacles and is tormenting by seabirds – he’s warned that they carry the souls of lost (dead) sailors.

Ultimately, The Lighthouse is a tale of madness. It’s Edgar Allen Poe via David Lynch. I thought often of Eraserhead while enduring this film. The two movies may bear only passing resemblance but there’s a confidence in both that ‘art’ must be served, is in fact the prime motivator for the telling of the tale – there’s no need for morality beyond contemplation of mortality; The Lighthouse is about our very worst of fears: Daily grind and the pointlessness of existence – the sheer terror of madness and its close, devastating clutch.

To spoil the plot wouldn’t be right at all – so I’ll say no further of the action beyond the power imbalance that has Wake in charge, impulsive and aloof and means Winslow is guarded, alone and in almost all senses lost.

The Lighthouse washes over you and near oozes from the pores of your skin. That’s its powerful cling. That’s what the filmmaker – extraordinarily bold and brave in this work – would have only hoped might happen.

You see it. You don’t forget it. You shouldn’t regret it in either case – but it’s either a 1-star movie experience or a 5-star. There is no in-between.
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