This is the kind of movie that made me distant from movies for a while. I don't know but I didn't feel like watching anything after going through The Lighthouse. It's not that it was bad or disturbing but it was executed in such a boring way that everything just seemed dull for a while.

From the very beginning, you can notice that something is wrong. I think everyone who watched this movie for the first time, whether it was at the cinema or from the comfort of their home, noticed the weird aspect ratio. In my case, I thought that I got a corrupted version of the movie but apparently, it was actually shot at a 1.19:1 ratio. Personally, I think this is a good choice and fits the theme of the film. An odd and not a traditional choice but still a good one. It was also filmed on a black and white 35mm negative, which just added up to the mimic of the film being old. As bizarre as it is for modern cinema, you get used to it quickly and it doesn't bother you after a relatively short time.

What you don't get used to is the foghorn. It varies in loudness from scene to scene but it stays in the background for the whole movie. At some points it seems that it bellows louder than usual, penetrating deep through my ears and even giving my whole body a shock. Audibly, the movie was not a good experience. Besides the foghorn, the list of unpleasant sounds included chugging industrial machinery. When not being exposed to those, we usually either hear roaring winds or crashing waves, sometimes a mix of both.

The first line of the movie was provided by the younger "gentleman" that we followed for the duration of the movie. He simply said "Son-of-a-"under his breath after bumping his head on a low ceiling when climbing the stairs. I don't know why but even after two weeks have passed, this is one of the moments I remember vividly. Without doing much thinking, I believe that is because it just felt natural, something I did multiple times in my life and as it happened after a long sequence of nothing but foghorn bellowing, water dribbling, and grey foggy visuals, it just felt like this movie will have some life after all. This just shows how small details can have an impact on the viewing experience.

Though I liked that one little moment in the starting phase of the film, I can't really say I felt the same all the time going forward. That whole scene was soon followed old fellow farting, almost as to show dominance. And he did it more than once, from what I can remember. Literal fart humor in a movie that is supposed to be an entry in the (psychological?) horror genre. The plot felt more like the classic tale of someone going mad in some sort of confinement. To me, the plot felt like a drunken journey that resulted in some beans being spilled and emotions, predominantly anger and envy, getting their way. I wasn't a palpable horror story in my book.

Though I didn't like the story, I did get a sense of enjoyment from the dialogue. They weren't always comfortable but they were definitely delivered cleverly. Both actors are gifted speakers and that was the biggest strength of the movie. Though just a thought but the uncomfortable audio effects did do something right - they made me appreciate the dialogues more as they were rarely interrupted by other sounds. I don't remember a particular quote after all this time but I remember that even when both of them got drunk and went on bizarre rambles, you still felt like that they can say something and sound classier under those circumstances than I could ever sound sober. For the most part, I loved listening to them interact with each other, even though the old-timer did make me pop out a few nerves with the things he said.

Overall, my feelings for the movie are as close to neutral as they can get. I was a bit provoked and unpleased but at the same time, it made me feel something. There are too many movies that just take it safe and slow and that's just boring, if one thing this movie is, it's not boring. I'd rather have unpleasant than boring. On the other hand, this movie tried to achieve too much and ended up being sort of a mess, both audibly and story-wise. The other thing that this movie overdid what the ambiguity. I didn't talk about it but I just want to briefly mention that there's a lot that's not clear after the closing moment. You can even go as far as to say that he faked the story of his real name as it's not clear where the madness ends, where it begins and how it manifests, are the mermaids/sirens just a dream or not, and what the light actually holds, if it holds anything at all. Combing all these elements that this movie brings, I kind of want to recommend others to watch it just to see if they take out from it more than I did.