2019 In Review: The Lighthouse

A Pervy, Piratey Folktale

(Perhaps one of the greatest films ever made)

This is a cinematic nugget of gold in a coal mine of modern contemporary filmmaking, like nearly nothing else of its kind.

* * * * *

“How long have we been on this rock?”

By shooting a period piece in 19:1 boxed ratio, on grainy black & white 35mm film, Robert Eggers has presented a modern day horror masterpiece; one which harks back to not just the forgotten era of 17th century sailors, but beyond the pioneers of film, enveloping an entire world of authentic and frightening horrors at sea with only two deranged characters at the helm of its ship.

  Every frame of The Lighthouse is an enigma of inspired madness that’s every bit as poetic as the works of Herman Melville and as strange as the tall tales of H.P. Lovecraft. Brothers Robert and Max Eggers pepper their steamboat of a screenplay with sailor talk, crashing with salty dialect and crooked slang which feels ripped from the pages of pirate folklore. They create a strange and psychological horror that crawls under the skins of the audiences in ways that most films dare not dream of.

  From the ominous opening shot alone; DP Jarin Blascgke’s gritty black & white frame of the gloomy shape of an old ship fading through the dark fog, approaching the face of the frame, it’s a masterful setup for Eggers to bake his audience in the morose mood of his escapade at sea.

  Our two leads step afoot on shore, the daunting behemoth of the titular lighthouse menacing over their arrival; the sailors stare through the barrel of the camera, their outfits dirtied and stitched in the ghosts of our ancestors; their faces worn and rugged. No dialogue, rather the sounds of the crashing waves, interrupted by the haunting fog horn of the lighthouse, echoed by the chilling score of Mark Korven as if to announce the erect building as a haunting character itself.

  Young Winslow (Robert Pattinson) enters the old wooden house, drops his bags, lays on a ripped mattress; discovers a small statue of a mermaid. The elder Thomas (Willem Dafoe) introduced by means of an old, bearded grouch who farts.

  There’s a staggering amount of character detail and production value immediately stitched into the coats of this picture, silently introduced akin to a flip book of pirates past. Like ripping out the forgotten pages of Ernest Hemingway and reading them by candlelight, Eggers is not out to tell a tall tale, but rather invite us to get drunk with his two leads.

  Thomas and Winslow aren’t rich characters but raw people brought to life by Dafoe and Pattinson, who deliver some of the most outright unbelievably authentic performances ever captured on film. These two completely slip into the deranged roles, Pattinson climbing up his ladder of the psychologically convincing, Dafoe further cementing himself as one of the greatest actors of his time.

  These aren’t mere sailors, but salty sea dogs that spit and cuss, and sing and dance. They are funny folks who are the fathom of a frightening fairytale. Old and young they are stubbornly alike, yet suspiciously different. Their unpredictable behaviors are the stuff of mad men; two unhinged drunks who unravel their cabin fever to a maddening degree of psychological horrors, and that’s completely aside the strange or the sexual.

  Eggers spends so much time unraveling the twisted mysteries of his two leads that by the time the picture goes full steam bizarre, the wackiness feels completely welcoming given the influence of sailor myth, despite the events of the film inspired by a horrific true story. Even as dark as the shenanigans get, the bizarre and deranged nature of the film is just as genuinely terrifying as it is unexpectedly hilarious.

  With a sense of utter dread looming over the entire picture, even the lighthouse itself becomes a haunting presence. Like The Overlook in The Shining, its daunting and limited structure represents a silent fear, marooning its hosts in a claustrophobic game of maddening delusions. Surrounded by endlessly wicked storms, and captivating a mysterious light locked away, the lone establishment itself creates endless wonders as to what horrible horrors are behind it.

  Eggers seems obsessed with keeping his story shrouded in mystery and wringing his characters dry; their every drop of aggression squeezed through the cracks of the floorboards; their sexual frustration taken out on means of fantastical mermaids or grotesque tentacles. He creates delusions from nightmares and develops bad omens by means of seagulls. He fills his dark dialogue with talk of curses, yet unafraid to jump into comically stressful charades of Dafoe and Pattinson drinking themselves into a merry oblivion of self destruction, which often plays out like unpredictable dark comedy.

  With just two characters in one remote location The Lighthouse sometimes feels more watching a Hemmingway inspired stage play, than a classic black & white film, yet always challenging audience expectation. Succumbing to a twisted spiraling plot of madness; in drunkenly blurring the line between reality and fantasy, Eggers immerses his audiences like a Greek myth, under waves of feverish nightmares, resulting in one of the most psychologically dark and hypnotically bizarre films ever made.

  Even with an ambiguous ending that feels lifted from the most twisted roots of David Lynch, Eggers has surpassed his own masterclass of the weird and wild, paying off a sea of anticipation, perhaps even more so than The Witch. 

  With his sophomore spook, Eggers has something incredibly special on his hands far beyond his knack for dark and ominous period films. Unafraid to embrace the weird and roll with the punches, with only two films the man has swallowed his audience in a bone chilling world of deranged terror that has felt almost completely absent from cinema. 

  Like peering through a haunting photo album; From New England folk tale to old pirate myth, Eggers’ works are like old ghost stories that frighten like long lost cinema with the ferocious edge of modern day nightmares. His understanding for traditional horror has cemented him along the likes of Aster and Peele as horror auteurs in the making.

  Chilling and undeniable, The Lighthouse is one of the most bizarre and rare beasts to ever bestow pure cinema. This is film at its finest. It isn’t just a modern masterpiece, but a parcel of the past; a gonzo experiment of pure craft which burns like the dying light of an old candle wick among a poop deck of an all but forgotten pirate ship of cinema.

There aren’t many films like The Lighthouse and it’s a film to be embraced, because it may be a long time before we get a film like this ever again.

*10 points to A24 

* 20 points to Pattinson 

* 20 points to Dafoe 

* 50 points to Eggers