The Lighthouse

THE LIGHTHOUSE (15)

D: Robert Eggars

A24/Regency/RT (Rodrigo Teixeira, Jay Van Hoy, Robert Eggars, Lourenço Sant'Anna & Youree Henley)

US/Canada 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 2019

109 mins

Drama/Fantasy/Horror

W: Robert Eggars

DP: Jarin Blaschke

Ed: Louise Ford

Mus: Mark Corven

Robert Pattinson (Thomas Howard / Ephraim Winslow), Willem Dafoe (Thomas Wake), Valeriia Karaman (The Mermaid), Kyla Nicolle (The Woman On The Rocks)

**SPOILER WARNING**

The Lighthouse is an arthouse horror movie much similar to David Lynch's surrealist classic Eraserhead. Like Robert Eggars previous movie, The Witch, it's not your typical horror movie full of jump scares and gory deaths, it's more a psychological fantasy with references to Greek mythology and seafaring superstitions.

Robert Pattinson & Willem Dafoe play a pair of lighthouse keepers on a remote New England island. The first act focuses on the exchanges of the two men, Pattinson's character being pensive and reserved, whilst Dafoe is a drunken loudmouth. There's also a power struggle between the two men, with Dafoe assuming command and delegating all the menial tasks to the younger man.

Pattinson's character becomes haunted by visions of a mermaid and a one-eyed seagull & ultimately starts to lose his sanity as he spends more and more days stranded on the island.

The Lighthouse is a unique visual experience and a film which doesn't provide all the answers for you, so a fair amount of afterthought and deciphering will be necessary to understand this film's depths. Personally, I like films which allow discourse like this, but on this occasion I think it's just a little too arty for my liking, despite being very impressively photographed.

6/10