THE LIGHTHOUSE : Tuesday 18th February 2020

I finally got around to seeing earlier this week, the MA15+ Rated psychological horror offering 'THE LIGHTHOUSE' some three weeks after its initial Australian release. Shot in black and white and a 'narrow, vintage' nearly square 1.19:1aspect ratio on 35mm film here American film maker, Co-Producer and Co-Writer of 'The Lighthouse' Robert Eggers, Directs only his second feature film following 2015's highly acclaimed mid-17th Century supernatural horror film 'The Witch'. This film saw its World Premier screening at Cannes in May last year, was released in the US in mid October, has garnered universal Critical acclaim, has collected twenty-two award wins and a further 92 nominations, and has made US$17M off the back of a US$4M production budget.

It is the late19th Century and Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) is sent on a boat to serve a contract job as a wickie (lighthouse keeper) for four weeks on an isolated island off the coast of New England, under the supervision of an irritable ageing man named Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe). Familiarising himself with his new surroundings, Winslow notices a hole in his mattress which he has unrolled from his bed. As he digs into it, he discovers a scrimshaw of a small mermaid and places it in to his jacket pocket. Winslow later that night, notices Wake going up to the lighthouse's lantern room and stripping naked. Winslow begins having visions and dreams of octopus like tentacles in the lantern room, tree stumps floating in the water close to the shoreline and images of a mermaid (Valeriia Karaman).

Over the course of the ensuing weeks Wake demands Winslow (whom her refers to as 'lad') take the more taxing jobs that involve heavy lifting and carrying, or are seen as more menial. Refueling the light with cumbersome wheelbarrow loads of coal carted over rough ground, carrying heavy kerosene containers, cleaning out the lighthouse keepers cottage and scrubbing the floor, repainting the lighthouse in the obligatory white, disposing of the two men's chamber pots, and attending to the cistern to ensure there is sufficient clean drinking water are among the jobs tasked to Winlsow. As the weeks progress, Winslow repeatedly encounters a one-eyed gull that begins to taunt him. Wake warns Winslow that it is bad luck to harm a seagull, as he is superstitious that they are the souls of reincarnated sailors. One night over dinner, the two get to know each other a little better fuelled by increasing amounts of alcohol, and discuss Wake's previous second wickie. Wake says that he died shortly after losing his sanity. Winslow states that he used to work in Canada as a timberman, but decided to change professions, and is now looking to earn enough income to be able to buy his own place where no one can tell him what to do.

The day before Winslow is due to leave the island, he notices the water pump is releasing a thick black sludge and investigates. He checks the cistern to see a dead and rotting gull floating inside. The one-eyed seagull flies down and attacks Winslow, who wrestles with it and beats it to a pulp against the cistern. Later that same day, the wind dramatically changes direction. That night, a storm hits the island, and the two men get drunk. The next morning the pair wait down by the shoreline for the tender to arrive in the lashing rain. The tender does not arrive needless to say due to the high seas, fierce wind and driving rain, so the pair retreat back inside the cottage. When the storm has abated somewhat Winslow sees a body washed up on the shore which he approaches and observes that it is a mermaid. He briefly fondles the mermaids face and breasts, and then she comes around and screams, causing him to step back in fright and run back to the cottage. There Wake advises that the remaining rations were badly damaged by the storm. They dig up a crate said to contain extra rations, but it only contains more alcohol.

As the storm continues to rage outside, the two men grow closer fuelled by yet more alcohol, while still remaining somewhat confrontational. Winslow has visions of a lobster trap containing the severed, half-blinded head of Wake's previous wickie who apparently went insane. One night, Winslow confesses to Wake that his real name is in fact Thomas Howard and that he assumed the identity of Ephraim Winslow, Howard's foreman who died in an accident that he failed to prevent. That night he tries to escape on a small fishing boat, but Wake destroys it with an axe. Wake chases Howard into the cottage, but inside, Wake states that it was Howard who attacked him. With no alcohol left, the two begin alcohol improvisation by mixing turpentine with honey, and getting steadily drunk on that. The storm reaches a crescendo that sees waves crash through the windows of the cottage.

The next morning when the pair come round from their drunken stupor, Howard finds Wake's log floating in the waterlogged cottage. In it Wake has noted down all of his failings and infractions since commencement and recommends severance without pay. Wake abuses Howard for his work performance while Howard accuses Wake of mental abuse. Wake further chides Howard, and Howard attacks him. While seeing visions of the mermaid, Wake as a sea monster, and the real Winslow, Howard beats Wake into submission. Howard leashes Wake like a dog with a rope and forces him to walk on all fours before burying him alive in the ration pit. Howard removes the keys from Wake's coat and prepares to go up to the lantern room, but Wake appears from behind and hits him in the shoulder with a savage blow from an axe. Howard disarms Wake with a kettle pot and kills him with the same axe before climbing the lighthouse up to the lantern room, which hitherto Wake has forbidden him from entering. 

He approaches the Fresnel lens, weakened and blood stained. He is drawn to its light, mesmerised and it stops revolving and opens up to him. Howard gazes into the mirrored interior in ecstasy and reaches his arm inside. He then lets out distorted screams as the light brightens, growing louder and brighter, before slipping backwards, breaking his leg and falling all the way down the lighthouse spiral stairway to the bottom. Howard is finally seen lying naked on the rocks, with one eye missing, gazing up at the sky as a flock of seagulls circle overhead and several others gulls shit on him and peck away at his now exposed internal organs, slowly eating him alive.

'The Lighthouse' is a weird concoction of a film to be sure, but its redeeming features far outweigh those going against it. Director Robert Eggers has here proven that he's no one trick pony with a straight off the blocks win with 2015's 'The Witch', and with his eerie, claustrophobic, doom laden and insanity inducing follow up has firmly positioned himself as a film maker totally in control of his craft, and one to watch out for. The cinematography by Jarin Blaschke is top notch too in recreating the sense of dread and foreboding of living on a remote weather beaten lighthouse station for weeks on end, with a complete stranger only for company at the end of the 19th Century. And then there are the performances of the two principle characters here with both Dafoe and Pattinson giving their all in truly convincing and authentic roles. The former plays the old salty sea dog who has seen it all before and will gladly recount his tall tales to anyone who will listen, likes a drink or five, farts a lot and it's never made clear if indeed he can be trusted or relied upon. And Pattinson who continues to shine in his film making choices, gives arguably the best performance of his career to date as the put upon, struggling to make a go of his life, nose to the grindstone, never say die young servant to Dafoe's old master. Everything about this film is ramped up to the Nth degree from the stunning black and white (and often starkly grey) visuals; to the constant cacophony of noise and sound; to the claustrophobia of the internal scenes; to the wild landscape battered by the boiling sea, the crashing waves, the driving rain, the howling wind; the intensity of the bright light that is the lantern; the dialogue taken straight from that bygone era and the intensity with which the pair's relationship develops and then unravels in the closing scenes as madness takes hold. Some of the urban legends and myths of the sea you'll take with a pinch of salt, but they help propel the films theme along, although at times you'll be scratching your head at the surreal weirdness of it all.

'The Lighthouse' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-