Being cooped up in a tiny building with Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe for a long time probably sounds pretty appealing to a lot of people. However, it’s safe to assume the number of individuals who would be willing to be cooped up with the two men as they slowly lose their minds to cabin fever, all while living in harsh conditions along the sea, is significantly less. When it comes to spending a couple of hours in a movie theater watching that madness unfold we’re all in, especially after the seeing the intense new trailer for director Robert Egger’s upcoming dark comedy The Lighthouse. Between its glimpses of insanity and humor, it has us asking one very important question: What?
As in, “What the hell is going on here?”
Normally, common words don’t earworm their way into our heads like a song, but we’re going to be saying “what” repeatedly for a while. And yes, we’re going to get louder and more manic each time.
As for this second look at the film, which recently earned acclaim after its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, it walks the line between feeling like another horror film from Eggers, who directed 2015’s The Witch, and a dark comedy that could have us laughing even while we’re terrified for everyone involved. No matter how stunning this looks visually, we’re even worried for that decapitated head we get a brief glimpse of in the trailer, which has us really concerned for the safety of Pattinson’s character. Dafoe seems like an intense guy normally; a grizzled, bearded, likely killer Dafoe is not someone we’d want to be cooped up with for any length of time.
But we will definitely sit in a dark theater and watch that guy.
The Lighthouse comes to theaters in New York and Los Angeles on October 18 before expanding nationwide.
Featured Image: A24