The Lighthouse

"The Lighthouse" is an arthouse American-Canadian psychological horror film.

The plot of the film is based on real stories of lighthouse keepers who have gone mad or missing, on marine and ancient myths, as well as on the works of Edgar Allan Poe (in particular, on the unfinished story "The Lighthouse" by him) and Howard Lovecraft.

1890s, somewhere off the coast of New England. A young man Ephraim Winslow comes to a remote island to work as an assistant to the lighthouse keeper, a lame, bearded drinker Thomas Wake. He treats the subordinate as a personal slave and forbids him to climb the lighthouse itself and control the lamp.

Ephraim does not let go of his own past. At first, the guy who refused alcohol more and more often takes to the bottle, and soon on the rocky island – either he is imagining it, or in fact – all sorts of devilry begins to happen.

In several episodes of the film, a mermaid appears (one of the characters calls creatures like her sirens). She looks like a beautiful young woman with a naked torso and a fish tail. At the level of the ribs, she has gills. The mermaid makes sharp sounds similar to the cries of seagulls.

It remains a mystery whether the mermaid really exists or is a figment of the inflamed imagination of the film's character.