The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse is screening at the Clinton Street Theater on Saturday, October 17. It's Robert Eggers' 2019 period piece, a black-and-white psychological horror set on a remote New England island in the 1890s. If you've seen it, you know it's a claustrophobic, slow-burn kind of movie—two lighthouse keepers, played by Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, slowly losing their grip on reality while trapped together by a storm. If you haven't, it's a great one to catch on a big screen rather than at home, since so much of the tension comes from the atmosphere and the sound.

Eggers is known for his commitment to historical detail, and that carries over here. The film is shot in a nearly square aspect ratio that makes the whole thing feel tight and suffocating, and the black-and-white cinematography lets the fog and the crashing waves do a lot of the heavy lifting. It's a movie that takes its time, letting the isolation sink in before things really start to unravel, so it's the kind of thing that works best when you're sitting in a dark theater with everyone else watching the same slow descent.

The screening is on Saturday, October 17, at 7 PM. The Clinton Street Theater is at 2522 SE Clinton St, in Southeast Portland, so it's an easy enough spot to get to if you're already in the neighborhood. It's a single-feature night, just The Lighthouse on the bill, starting at 7 PM.