THE LIGHTHOUSE
The Bare Wickie Project
RELEASED OUT NOW! 2019 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Director Robert Eggers Cast Willem Defoe, Robert Pattinson
All credit to Robert Eggers.
It takes some doing to make a more uncompromising art horror than his first feature The Witch, but that’s The Lighthouse: a rain-sodden, wind-lashed two-hander, rich with ambiguity and disturbing subtext.
Winslow (Robert Pattinson) starts a four week job as a “wickie”, maintaining the lighthouse on an island off the coast of New England, under the supervision of the surly and eccentric Wake (Willem Dafoe). It’s not much fun. Beset by a vicious and belligerent gull, and suspicious of Wake’s habit of sneaking off to stand naked in the lantern room at night, Winslow grows ever more paranoid.
Nothing much happens in
The Lighthouse, but it happens terrifyingly. As Winslow and Wade slowly drive each other up the wall, a sense of uncanny menace seeps out of the starkly monochromatic celluloid. Winslow is beset by loneliness and visions of a siren on the rocks. Wade grows ever more cryptic. As the film progresses, their identities start to overlap and merge.
Defoe is as excellent as you’d expect as a wild-eyed old salt, sympathetic and sinister. But it’s Pattinson who really impresses, seeming decades older than his years. The third character is, of course, the location. Filmed in Nova Scotia in the midst of numerous bitter storms, The Lighthouse makes you feel every damp and miserable moment of these poor souls’ existence.
Extras Eggers provides a commentary. “A Dark & Stormy Tale” is a fascinating, three-part Making Of that illuminates the insane attention to detail that went into making the film. Our only complaint: at 36 minutes, it feels rather short. There’s also an eight-minute Making Of – effectively a condensed version of “A Dark & Stormy Tale” with a few extra quotes. Five minutes of inessential deleted scenes complete the package.
The lighthouse was built for the film. It worked, too – when turned on, its light could be seen 25 miles out to sea!