The Lighthouse (2019)

I don't think I'd ever seen a horror movie in a theater before, apart from a Rifftrax edition of Octaman, which made it more of a comedy. I had long assumed that horror, in contrast to comedy, was usually more effective when watched alone. It was high time I tested that theory.

Despite taking some inspiration from the Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy of 1801 in Wales, this story is set somewhere in New England around 1890. A young man who much prefers "Winslow" to "lad" (Robert Pattinson) starts a four-week job assisting old man Wake (Willem Dafoe) in tending a remote isle's lighthouse. Winslow's first sign that he's not going to enjoy it is how ill-kept the place is. His first sign of something strange going on is that Wake insists, against written protocol, that Winslow stay away from the light at the top. Most of the time, the two men have trouble getting along. Their stresses only get worse after bad weather prevents Winslow from leaving on time. At least one of them loses his grip on sanity....

I say "at least one" because it's sometimes hard to tell whether an event is supposed to be real, dreamed, or hallucinated. We never do get the whole story straight. Maybe the fantasy tag doesn't actually belong here, but the only other characters we see are curiously aggressive seagulls and an unusually screwable mermaid, who aptly reminded me that in pre-Hans Christian Andersen tradition, mermaids are dangerous.

That said, the sex tag is included more for a few masturbation scenes, one of which shows more of Pattinson than I for one ever wanted. In general, there's plenty of vulgarity to go around, tho it first stems primarily from Wake, with his colorfully salty (if sometimes flowery) language and flatulence. Maybe that's why the audience in my theater kept chuckling at a film not designated a comedy.

I'm sure the actors weren't laughing in outtakes, between actual bad weather, super bright lights to compensate for the old-fashioned filming technique, and little interaction with each other when the cameras were off. It may have helped Pattinson's method acting, which has impressive results for the guy I still thought of as Edward Cullen. Dafoe, meanwhile, does a fine job of disappearing into Wake, but it's hard to judge his acting when that character is basically, as Winslow points out, a caricature of Atlantic nautical culture.

It's also hard to know which of the men to like or sympathize with, if either. Wake appears overly bossy, hypocritical, and frequently unpleasant, but this is Winslow's unreliable POV. Winslow first comes across as rather dull, with no desire for conversation, alcohol, or merriment of any kind. Perhaps he's trying too hard to cover his tracks while seeking a rather different life from before. His mounting anger certainly doesn't "become" him.

What TL lacks in clarity and taste, it more or less makes up for in feeling. As a psychological horror, it's creepy yet not outright frightening, with the possible exception of the symbolic ending. I'm going to be a bit leery of A24 productions from now on, but I may yet check out their next hit in another October.