‘The Lighthouse’ is a mess of claustrophobia and insanity

Posted on November 1, 2019

By MARK VIOLA

In 2015, Robert Eggers delivered his first feature film, “The Witch,” a movie that ultimately went on to be my “Honorable Mention” for the year due to it being one of my favorite horror films of all time. He did such a stellar job building the tension and the underlying sense of dread that you didn’t need a bunch of jump scares to feel unnerved and on the edge of your seat.

Now, four years later, we have Eggers’ second film, “The Lighthouse,” which he co-wrote with his brother Max Eggers. Like in “The Witch,” Eggers’ characters are isolated from the rest of the world. Only this time, instead of a malevolent force in the woods, the isolation itself is the biggest threat. Or is it? That truly is the question.

I went into “The Lighthouse” hoping to enjoy it as much as “The Witch,” and while the performances from Robert Pattison (“Twilight”) and Willem Dafoe (“The Florida Project”) are some of the best of the year, the film didn’t really connect with me as I was expecting and ends with less of a bang and more of a whimper.

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