Salty insanity.

Sometimes – just sometimes – all you need to tell a compelling story is a man (or two), a remote location, and encroaching madness. It’s a weird little nook of a genre but a tried and tested one that has produced many a fine tale through the years. From Tom Hanks’ volleyball bothering in Cast Away to the steady mental descent of Jack Torrance at the Outlook Hotel, cinema has been fascinated by the destructive effects of isolation for a very long time.

Whether fighting for survival or simply to stay sane, there’s something undeniably fascinating about pitting a man with his own mind in as remote a place as possible. And what could be more remote and potentially insanity-inducing than a creaky old lighthouse on a baron island in the middle of god knows where?

Dank, musty, and madder than a box of mermaids, The Lighthouse is a film with salt-infused insanity running through its veins, as man takes on man, nature, and all manner of mythical maritime weirdness in one of the most intensely bonkers films this side of David Lynch.

As the haunting wail of a foghorn fills the air, aloof former lumberjack Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) and grizzled lighthouse keeper Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) take up their post at an isolated island somewhere off the coast of late 19th century New England. For the next four weeks of back-breaking labour and inhospitable conditions, the two cantankerous men have no one for company but one another, as they’re forced to endure infuriating eccentricities, buttoned-down hostility, and escalating hatred. Amidst the mother of all storms, a prolonged period of feral hunger, manic isolation, and horrific booze-fuelled hallucinations sees the sinister stranglehold of insanity tighten, with the pair struggling to escape the wall-less prison of their minds.

Skirting around the shadowy fringes of horror, Robert Eggers’ small but impressive filmography has showcased a unique filmmaking vision that pulls together gothic, folk, and psychological elements for an utterly unique cinematic experience. With a low-key indie cool, his debut feature, The Witch, came out of nowhere as a dark and deeply unnerving calling card to both the horror genre and the world at large.

Best described as a murky, folkish nightmare, Eggers’ earthy, muted style taps into traditional mythical iconography in off-kilter and thoroughly unnerving ways. His films exist in a pocket universe, cut adrift in an otherworldly bubble, one that The Lighthouse slips perfectly into, feeling present in The Witch’s dreamlike existence while offering a whole new level of horror-tinged madness.

So salty and sodden you can practically taste it, The Lighthouse sees Eggers dive headfirst into the surreal, as he unearths the kind of ethereal eccentricity that’d make Lynch proud. Where The Witch danced around the edges of myth and madness, The Lighthouse sets sail directly into it, playing with the absurd like it’s conducting the most unsettling fever dream imaginable.

Complete with possessed seagulls, illusive krakens, and seductive sexy mermaids, The Lighthouse is stuffed full of nautical folklore nuttiness, yet, despite its overtly Lynchian leanings, the film pulls back just enough to avoid getting lost in the fog of its own surrealism. Make no mistake, The Lighthouse is as bonkers as they come, however, its relatively simple narrative and easily digestible ‘two men go mad on a rock’ plot make it surprisingly accessible to those not normally receptive to Lynch’s out-there brand of weirdness.

There are certainly one or two mysteries to uncover along the way, yet the plot’s simplicity does wear thin at times, and, clocking in at over two hours, feels a tad too long for something so narratively straight forward. Plot, however, will likely be the furthest thing from your mind as you dive deep into The Lighthouse’s grimy abyss, rocking up sodden and slimy upon its rugged shore. This is an all-encompassing experience and a plunge into an immersive nightmare that lures you in like a siren’s call before dragging you to its murky depths.

Under such circumstances, location is everything, with the barren, rain-lashed environment rapidly morphing into the film’s third character and its primary antagonist, as the lighthouse’s dank interiors and the island’s inhospitable landscape combine to envelop everything in an utterly surreal, fantastical darkness. Helped along by Jarin Blaschke’s haunting cinematography, the distinctive grainy colour pallet, and the claustrophobic 4:3 (or 1.19:1 if we’re being pedantic) aspect ratio, Robert Egger’s bold, choices feed perfectly into the film’s encroaching madness.

The use of such unique visuals serves as the ideal platform for its two leads to dive head-first into their haggard characters. Essentially operating as a two-man show, Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe give absolutely everything to their roles, as they fart, masturbate furiously, and drink their way to hell and back with performances that will leave you enchanted and repulsed in equal measure.

Swinging from grizzled reserve to booze-fuelled jigging abandon, both performers bring it all to the table, as blood, mud, sweat, and salty tears are shed for the cause. Considering how utterly focused the entire film is on their two characters, Pattinson and Dafoe embrace the pressure, ensuring that you’re never left bored while they mould intrigue and off-kilter emotion out of their sparse surroundings.

While Robert Pattinson continues to prove his few remaining doubters wrong with the kind of physical, off-the-wall performance that’s seen him leave his sparkly vampire days behind him, it’s Willem Dafoe that has the slight edge in proceedings. As the somewhat showier role of the two, Dafoe exudes his patented menace while injecting just the right level of humour and empathy into a thoroughly intriguing, mud-chomping performance that will haunt and repulse you to your core.

As the two bicker and abuse one another to breaking point, the unconventional chemistry that develops between Pattinson and Dafoe is something to behold, as their combined screen presence and balls-out commitment to the cause pulls the film through a torrent of brain-melting weirdness and into a whole new realm. Selling what, on paper at least, is a potentially impenetrable slab of hardcore surrealist cinema, both actors bring their A-game, becoming the perfect conduits for Robert Eggers’ peculiar material.

Working in cantankerous union, the two combine to sell The Lighthouse’ tidal wave of themes, as the film touches on myth, fear, identity, and masculinity in a thematically dense period poetic parable that sets all its characters on a course for the rocks. The film’s narrative simplicity and nutty appearance belie just how multi-layered it is as a cinematic experience, offering much to ponder, digest, and decipher.

Pure, salty insanity, The Lighthouse is an absolute tidal wave of a cinematic experience that will enchant, disgust, and dumfound in equal measure. Part Lynch, part Hitchcock, Robert Eggers serves up a rain-slicked, booze-soaked nautical nightmare that continues the folkish, psychological horror that served him so well with The Witch, as myth and reality blend in a disorientating storm of exquisite bleakness. Two men, one creaky phallus of a building, The Lighthouse centres on the barnstorming pairing of Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, luring you in like a siren on the rocks, before ramping up the insanity until you’re left a nervous shipwreck.