On a remote New England Island in the 1890s, two lighthouse keepers have to stay there for four weeks. Thomas Wake, the oldest between the two, has been watching over the lighthouse for a long time and is used to the unfavorable conditions. His new assistant, Ephraim Winslow, does not settle in with ease however. Ephraim is getting more and more frustrated by the older man’s fussing and complaints, where he is being bossed around constantly. When the four weeks are over, and the boat still doesn’t come to pick up Ephraim due to very bad weather, they both realize they might be stuck on the island for far longer than anticipated. Plagued by bad dreams and hallucinations (or are they hallucinations?) Ephraim tries to keep his sanity on the forsaken rock – but this proves to be difficult as deeply sunken secrets are about to break the surface.
The Lighthouse by Robert Eggers (who earlier gave us the very haunting and creepy film The Witch) is a very atmospheric black & white film, and is actually loosely based on a real-life tragedy that happened in 1801. Two Welsh Lighthouse keepers, who were in fact both named Thomas, became trapped due to a storm. That incident is referred to as The Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy. The movie was also shot on 35mm black and white Double-X 5222 film, and due to this, they needed a lot more light, so they put up flickering 500-800 watt halogen bulbs in period-correct kerosene lamps. These lamps were just a few feet away from the actor’s faces, so the result is a lot of imagery that simply looks stunning, especially with the facial expressions and grimaces being heavily toned due to the contrasts. Plain and simple, it is beautiful to watch.
There is a good amount of claustrophobic dread to appreciate from The Lighthouse. And with Ephraim’s dreams and visions (or are they all just dreams and visions?) with mermaids and giant tentacles, we get a dose of some of the old and classical myths and legends from sea folk. Thomas tells supernatural tales of sea gulls and bad omens, but while Ephraim tries to ignore the old man’s ramblings, it’s evident that there are certain things laying under the surface that causes him to become vulnerable to the tales. It doesn’t take long before Ephraim is slowly descending into madness…whether it be from the isolation, Thomas and his bossy demeanor and tales, the past…or maybe a mix of it all, who knows. When the men realize they are stranded, possibly for a long time to come, they both start drinking their senses away, somewhat easing up the tension for a little while as the drunken men starts dancing and singing sea shanties – but it doesn’t take long until the songs turn into insults and aggressive behavior, and a battle for dominance as the cabin fever starts to creep in.
“Nothing good can happen when two men are trapped alone in a giant phallus”, is the line Robert Eggers have used to describe this film. And he has done a very good job of portraying just this concept!
Director: Robert Eggers
Country & year: Canada | USA, 2019
Actors: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, Valeriia Karaman, Logan Hawkes, and a lot of sea gulls
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt7984734/
Bird Fitcher is a teenage girl who loves old things, and is working a part-time job at an antique store. When a co-worker brings in an old Polaroid camera, she’s really excited, and starts using it, snapping pictures of her friends. She soon realizes that something is not quite right with the camera, as the photos show a shadowy figure looming over the persons on the photo…and very soon it becomes apparent that the photos taken with the Polaroid camera has a very deadly effect.
Lizzy Macklin and her husband Isaac lives isolated on a harsh and untamed land in the Western frontier in the late 1800s. Soon, a newlywed couple (Emma and Gideon) moves into a house close by. The isolation starts cracking Emma’s psyche, causing her to suffer from Prairie Madness (an affliction that causes a mental breakdown due to the isolation and harsh living conditions, something that would happen to European settlers who were not used to living like this). Emma is clearly not able to get used the the isolation, and starts raving about “demons of the prairie”. Emma’s madness soon starts affecting Lizzy as well, and she starts wondering if there really is an evil demonic presence out to destroy them.
Nina is a Russian woman, who lives together with her young daughter Sasha. She has left her abusive and alcoholic husband, but he still causes trouble for her by coming to her home drunk and demanding to come inside and see his daughter. All Nina wants is a new and better life for herself and Sasha, and after joining a typical “Russian brides” website (dating website for people looking for a Russian woman) she gets in contact with a reclusive billionaire from USA. After traveling abroad to meet her new man, she marries him very soon thereafter. However, she soon finds out that the seemingly nice man has other motives…and Nina eventually realizes that she’s put both herself and her daughter in a dangerous position.
A young girl (Melissa) is playing nearby the pond close to her family’s residence, and finds a cute little crab whom she names Pee-Wee (yeah, you could probably make some STD jokes here). She decides to keep it, and starts to feed it some of the weird fruit from her father’s laboratory where he’s experimenting on a formula to make things grow larger. Soon, Pee-Wee starts to grow much bigger (I’m talking about the crab, of course). After an accident that kills both of Melissa’s parents, she lets Pee-Wee back into the pond and goes to live with her uncle, the town sheriff. Many years later, Melissa is still caring for her secret giant crab pet (who is, despite the name, actually a female). All is well until “Pee-Wee” gets some huge crab babies that start to cause trouble all over town…
Clare (Joey King) lives together with her father, who is collecting scrap metal and junk in order to make a living. In addition to feeling embarrassed whenever her father goes dumpster diving, she’s also plagued with nightmares and memories from a childhood trauma: her mother committed suicide by hanging herself in the attic, and Clare was the one who found her. Due to this, Clare is troubled with a lot of “what if’s” in addition to a general dissatisfaction over the life she’s currently living. One day she gets a Chinese music box as a result from her father’s recent scrap hunt, and this box is supposed to grant wishes. Trying it out merely for the fun of it, she soon realizes that the wishes actually comes true. What she doesn’t realize until it’s too late however, is that the wishes come at a price…
Dani and Christian, a young American couple, are at the brink of breaking up. Christian has already started planning a trip abroad with his friends and is more or less starting to walk out the door on the relationship, but after Dani experiences a horrible family tragedy where she loses her parents and sister in a murder-suicide, Christian can’t make himself break out. Months later, when Dani finds out about his planned trip to Sweden with his friends, she invites herself along with them. One of Christian’s friends, the Swede Pelle, brings them all to a traditional “Midsommar” celebration in a secluded area called “Harga”. All seem to be flowers and sunshine, until it becomes clear that they’ve ventured into a sect whose “traditions” proves to be rather disturbing.
Nicole is a young journalist eager to find out the truth in the case of an exorcism gone wrong in Romania, where a nun died and the priest and nuns involved were convicted for murder. She travels all the way over to Romania in order to dig deeper into the story, and after meeting with Father Anton and visiting the monastery where the exorcism took place, strange things start happening. As she finds out more and more about the nun that died, it becomes obvious to Nicole that something paranormal really did happen to that girl…and that it may even start happening to herself now.