In the 1890's a pair of lighthouse keepers are sent to a remote island in New England; the remote setting and the isolation soon takes a toll on the 2 men as they become increasingly unhinged the longer they are together on the island...

Credit where credit's due I have to admit that I felt that Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe were both very good here and there were certainly occasions when their performances did hold my attention (aside from odd occasions where it felt like they were trying to 'out act' one another). In addition to the impressive performances the film is also atmospheric and at times it also has a chilly eeriness about it. Unfortunately, for me, that is where a lot of the positive elements of this film end....

For a start, I didn't find the characters all that interesting and also found them to be poorly developed (which goes some way to perhaps explaining why I didn't find them all that interesting). Truth be told, I also found some of their dialogue difficult to decipher (again not helped by Willem Dafoe speaking like Captain Birdseye). The descent into madness is also handled a little unevenly and in all honesty it occasionally veers into comical & surreal madness which made it hard for me to take it seriously (which presumably wasn't the intention given the serious way that the story generally unfolds).

Unless you're a big fan of Willem Dafoe and/or Robert Pattinson it's not a film I could recommend personally - as I've mentioned it is only a success from a technical perspective. For what it's worth though I was going to give the film a 3, but added another star to my rating as I felt that it deserved that for the mostly excellent performances from Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson.