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 here's no doubt the British Slasher
"Lighthouse" (aka "Dead of Night") could have been
much better. It has an interesting premise, but the execution lacks
proficiency and there's a dullness about the whole thing that's hard to
figure out. The characters are mostly one-note and plainly drawn; more
ambiguity and shadiness would have done wonders. Instead, the film comes
across as a bit clumsy, especially where the main characters are involved.
"Lighthouse" is about prisoners being
escorted to an island prison via ship in the dead of night. When the ship
runs aground, the occupants -- prisoners and officials alike -- are forced
to swim to safety at a nearby lighthouse island, the spotlight of which
was suspiciously off at the time of the crash. Unfortunately for our
survivors -- three prisoners, a number of officials, and a female criminal
psychologist -- another prisoner had escaped the ship before it sank. And
that prisoner, serial killer Leo Rook (Christopher Adamson), is also at
the lighthouse and he's taking no prisoners.
The rest of the film is standard stuff, with the
survivors, led by capable convicted wife killer Spader (James Purefoy,
"Resident
Evil"), trying their best to avoid Rook's machete. We are told
that Spader is a wife killer, although he claims he was framed. We are
supposed to think Spader's shady past is in question, but events in the
film tell us otherwise. The script has Spader performing one heroic act
after another, making Spader's innocence an obvious fait accompli. More
ambiguity would have provided the character complexity, but that's simply
not the case here.
The serial killer himself is kept in shadows for much
of the film, with his face finally exposed toward the very end. Rook isn't
the most intimidating screen villain, and if anything it's somewhat
comical to watch Rook's tall, lanky frame walk casually from spot to spot,
nonchalantly taking his victims wherever he finds them. Michael Myers this
guy ain't, even though he gets the same attributes as all Slasher villains
-- namely a personal transporter that allows him to be everywhere and an
uncanny ability to keep ticking.
The cast of "Lighthouse" is hit and miss,
with no on really standing out. Christopher Dunne gets the unenviable task
of playing the Asshole Bureaucrat and Rachel Shelley stumbles through the
movie as Doctor Kirsty McCloud, a supposedly brainy clinical psychologist
studying serial killer Rook. It is later revealed that McCloud has a past
with Rook, but this revelation seems to have been tacked on at the last
minute. Having studied Rook for years now, you'd think McCloud's expertise
would come in handy, but you'd be wrong because she offers no insights
whatsoever. Other than to make eyes at Spader, there seems to be no good
reason for a female character to even be in the film at all.
Hunter gives us a number of bloody kills, but they
all come by way of a machete to the neck, which isn't exactly re-inventing
the wheel. Most of the film takes place in the middle of the night, which
makes the lighthouse location well suited to the subject at hand. With its
rock-covered land, the small, darken island resembles a death trap rather
than the salvation the survivors thought it was. With the lighthouse and
its lone sweeping spotlight, the film easily achieves a foreboding mood,
even if the grainy darkness eventually gets a bit tedious after a while.
The movie's most realized character is Leo Rook, and
that's not saying much at all. One of Rook's quirks is that he wears white
shoes during his killing spree, although how a prisoner being transported
to an island prison was allowed to keep his favorite pair of shoes is a
bit of a mystery. The other big plot contrivance is how Rook could break
out of his jail cell on the boat, kill two prison guards, and escape the
boat without anyone noticing until much, much later. Security on this boat
sucks.
As a Slasher film, "Lighthouse" works well
enough. There's a hefty bodycount and a healthy dose of bloodletting to
satisfy genre fans; they're nothing extraordinary, or even particularly
clever, but I suppose they'll do. The movie's standout scene is a low-key
stalk sequence inside the lighthouse's bathroom. The rest of the movie is
mostly pedestrian, although the final Act gives us an excellent scene
involving characters dangling from the outside of the lighthouse and a
handful of hair.
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