A24 just keeps churning out smart, intriguing, thought-provoking films, and today the studio dropped the first trailer for its latest offering in the horror genre, The Lighthouse. At first glance, what sets this apart is the choice to shoot entirely on 35mm black-and-white film—better to evoke a bygone age.

Set in 1890, Director Robert Eggers' vision was inspired by a real-life 1801 tragedy involving two Welsh lighthouse keepers trapped in a storm. It was inspired as well by classic tales by Herman Melville, H.P. Lovecraft, and Algernon Blackwood. It's kind of a ghost story, featuring two lighthouse keepers (Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) on a remote and mysterious New England island, and both gradually go mad from the isolation.

The Lighthouse made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year to rave reviews, earning a best movie honor from the International Federation of Film Critics—a first for A24. Eggers described the film to Deadline Hollywood as “something a little weirder” than his 2015 breakout film, The Witch, calling it “more dreadful than horror.”

It was shot entirely on black-and-white 35mm film, with the same square frame and aspect ratio (1.19:1) favored by early pioneering filmmakers like Fritz Lang and G.W. Pabst. Per IMDB, "To enhance the image, making it resemble early photography, a custom cyan filter made by Schneider Filters that emulated the look and feel of orthochromatic film from the late 19th century was used." Eggers has said he did this because "the spaces in this movie are meant to feel confined... The idea of widescreen only came about in the 1950s. We wanted to take people back further than that."

YouTube/A24

YouTube/A24

YouTube/A24

YouTube/A24

YouTube/A24

YouTube/A24

YouTube/A24

YouTube/A24

The trailer wisely keeps most of the plot details very vague, letting us instead savor the technical achievement of the haunting black-and-white cinematography. It's period horror that looks like an old-time Hollywood Golden Age film. In fact, it's the kind of film Alfred Hitchcock might have made, in the vein of Rope or Rear Window, both of which feature equally constrained settings. And audiences who have had the chance to see the film so far have responded positively. The Lighthouse has a 98% favorability rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The consensus? It's "a gripping story brilliantly filmed and led by a pair of powerhouse performances."

“How long have we been on this rock? Five weeks? Two days?” Dafoe's Thomas Wake wonders aloud. We see the two men going about their daily chores and bonding over drinks at night. But the isolation begins to take its toll on the men's psychological states, and they struggle to distinguish between reality and hallucination. There's a massive storm, what looks like a flood, and an attack by some kind of sea monster (or maybe just an octopus), plus a shot of Winslow lovingly holding a small mermaid sculpture. And throughout, we hear Wake's incessant question: "Why'd ya spill yer beans?" What does it all mean? Who knows? Like The Witch, it's probably best to know as little as possible about the plot going in.

The Lighthouse will screen at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival in September. It is slated for theatrical release on October 18, 2019.

Listing image by YouTube/A24