Come across a touch of gold last night while dodging the wife’s obsession with everything soap opera as on the iPlayer I found the film “The Lighthouse”. Growing up I had a fantasy about being a light housekeeper and went so far has to look for a job with Trinity Lighthouse. I had a fascination with the lighthouse on Flat Holm but by the early eighties, all the lighthouses were unmanned so it wouldn’t have been a good career choice.
Horror tends to disturb us much more when it taps into our own personal demons… The Lighthouse is a film based on a true story, the Smalls Island Incident of 1801, showing how our own demons can actually be the scariest of them all!
Thomas Howell (Michael Jibson) and Thomas Griffiths (Mark Lewis Jones) are posted at the Smalls Island Lighthouse, with the job of ‘keeping the light’ to protect sailors from the islands rocks. The temperamental nature of the weather on the Irish Sea leads to the two becoming stranded 25 miles from land in the Lighthouse and as their supplies start to run out, their grip on reality begins to fail.
While based on a true story, it is fair to say that the facts of the real case are used as a basic plan of where the story will run its course. This film looks into the souls of two men who had inner demons that took over them, and led to disaster. Taking us on their voyage to being broken by their own minds, it is interesting to see just how the film itself manages this.
Another aspect of the film is the fact that the characters seem doomed from the outset, there is an instant dislike between the two. One religious man hiding behind his belief from his past actions, and one lacking faith because of what he blames God for this leads to confrontation between the two on many angles. As with many films, we don’t need to believe in God to know that the omnipresent presence has an effect in a film like this.
The Lighthouse depends on the performance of Michael Jibson and Mark Lewis Jones, and while I wasn’t invested in the characters at first, they soon pulled me in and I become invested in the story. This is because of the nature of the performances. The more we understand the characters, and the more they are freed from the constraints of self-control the more powerful the performances are allowed to become.
After watching this film although a different era it scared me witless. I often dream of scenarios where I am along life rowing around the world or being shipwrecked alone. Someone told me they felt I was living in a castle with the drawbridge firmly shut to keep people out maybe she was right then but I would say the drawbridge has opened a bit. After the incident, Smalls Island a crew of three manned all lighthouses.
My personal rating 9/10
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