Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe have seen better days. In the trailer for “The Lighthouse,” they’re unkempt, unshaven and unhinged, fighting the elements and eventually each other as the two of them rapidly lose their minds.
It’s an insane first look at the new film from director Robert Eggers, a “psychodrama” that A24 acquired out of Cannes after both Pattinson and Dafoe were heralded for their combative and wild performances.
“How long have we been on this rock? Five weeks? Two days? Help me to recollect,” Dafoe asks Pattinson chillingly.
Eggers is the director of the horror film “The Witch,” and while his latest isn’t strictly horror, it has all the style of his terrifying debut. “The Lighthouse” is shot in black and white and in an Academy aspect ratio for an unsettling, old fashioned look that only amplifies the psychodrama. Pattinson plays a man coming to take a job with another lighthouse keeper on a remote and mysterious island in New England in the 1890s.
“The Lighthouse” has been described by A24 as “hypnotic” and “hallucinatory,” and out of Cannes it scored a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Eggers even won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for his work.
“The Lighthouse” opens in theaters Oct. 18. Watch the first trailer above.