This really is a superbly cast and very well acted film, that psychologically grips us from imagining ourselves in the situations. I am shocked by the aggregate review; it ought to be much higher.

The film is based on a true story, but if you're looking for a light film this is not it.

It haunts so much that I still think of it 4 years after its release.

This is effectively a two hander about two misfits talking and drinking in a gloomy isolated lighthouse.

It is inspired by a true incident but takes a left turn. Set in 1801, in a lighthouse 25 miles off the Welsh coast and in the Irish sea, Thomas Howell (Michael Jibson) joins the incumbent keeper Thomas Griffith (Mark Lewis Jones.)

Both are guilty about past losses. Griffith has lost family, Howell has lost men. They might each be blameable for it.

Howell is a religious god fearing man. Griffiths is an atheist. Stormy weather has cut off the men, as they drink the relationship between them becomes tense, both men brood.

The Lighthouse is a downbeat psychological thriller. The place they are hemmed in is metaphysical. It is purgatory for their sins. There will be no escape from The Lighthouse.

The film never really maintained my interest. It is acted well by the two leads but it just felt like a stage play. The twist at the end gives it more credibility than it deserves.

Two lighthouse keepers find themselves stranded on a desolate island for months due to a fierce and unrelenting freak storm. As water and food start to dwindle, the pair must deal with cabin fever and fight to retain their sanity so they can stay alive in an increasingly desperate situation.

Director/co-writer Chris Crow relates the grim, but gripping story at a deliberate pace, takes time to develop the two radically contrasting main characters, generates a tremendous amount of nerve-wracking claustrophobic tension, and adroitly crafts a beautifully bleak'n'brooding gloom-doom mood with a strong underlying sense of total despair and utter hopelessness. Mark Lewis Jones and Michael Jibson are both excellent and convincing in their meaty lead roles. An extremely potent and unsettling descent into pure hell on earth.