Back in 2015, a first-time feature director by the name of Robert Eggers stunned critics nationwide with his terrifyingly spookifying The Witch, a 1630-set period piece which featured, well, a witch who terrorizes a banished pilgrim family. The film had an insane dedication to historical accuracy, right down to the smallest detail of how these people would have lived back then. The accents were appropriately rough and transitioning from their British influences. Also, it has the coolest goat to have ever been captured on film. Even cooler than, uh, you know, that other famous goat…
Eggers has yet to follow up his sleeper hit, but he’s started working on his new movie, The Lighthouse. Another period piece, this time set in 1890’s Nova Scotia, the pic will feature a spooky old lighthouse, run by a guy named Old, played by Willem Dafoe. He’s standing with a younger man, the as-of-yet unnamed character played by actual actor Robert Pattinson, in the photo below, showing our pair looking rough, chewed up and spit out by the harsh Northern seas.
They look especially rough on the 35mm black-and-white stock the film was shot on, which, these days, is practically unheard of. It’s always nice to see a director sticking to the original ways and Eggers even used equipment from the 1920s and 40s to keep it feeling authentic.
Not much else is known about The Lighthouse currently, but anticipation is sky high for those of us still enraptured by his delicious slice of horrifying 1600s life. Eggers’ next feature is set to debut during next month’s Cannes Film Festival, as part of the Director’s Fortnight section.
There’s no hard release date for it just yet, but 2019 is shaping up to be a heck of a year for horror, with this probably coming out before the end of December, alongside Ari Aster’s Midsommar, that Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark adaptation, It: Chapter Two, Child’s Play and numerous other remakes/sequels. At least Eggers is keeping it original though with both The Witch and The Lighthouse.
