Movies

The Lighthouse

Garrett

Oct 21, 2026 — 3 min read

Synopsis

Two lighthouse keepers work together to try to keep their sanity while living on a stormy remote island.

Review

This is a weird movie. There is a lot of… self-pleasure, I have to be care with wording there for some of the sites that this gets posted to, in here that I never wanted to see. There is also some weird interspecies sex, but the main question is more about whether it actually happened. That idea right there is where the horror comes from. This nagging question of "Did that actually happen?"

Part of that question really comes from the performance of Willem Defoe. He looks like Captain Ahab from Moby Dick and sounds like it too. Combine this to the writing and language choices, you have this poetry in the presentation. There are times of meta jokes as well about choosing the more old-timey word rather than the modern one. In this Ahab presentation, there are times in the movie that you are unsure if Robert Pattinson is actually losing time or if he is being gaslit.

The story is wild. Combine the question by the audience of what is going on, with this descent into madness story, and you are just hanging on to your seat. I do wish it leaned a bit more into the Cthulhuian mythology or horror, but I like how they blended that madness into it, with the audience never really knowing what is going on.

My Rating

That is where most people will walk out or stop watching. There is this constant "huh" running through your mind as you watch this which means you have to pay attention. Much more than The Witch or Nosferatu. However, the performance of Pattinson and Defoe is incredible. They are so good in their dictation and movement that you get lost in it. It is a slow movie, but worth at least a single watch. This is an 8.

Parental Rating

Between seeing Pattinson go off on himself a couple of times, possibly having sex with a mermaid, and him groping a boob like Rocco in The Boondock Saints, my Mom would run for the hills. The language is old, but there are some clear words that my Dad would be upset. The movie is in black and white, so the blood isn't really noticeable as much, but still this movie is rejected by both.