Lighthouse

Many modern slasher flicks are somewhat campy and understandably so as writing a genuinely scary variant of a film type we've already seen many times isn't easy.

The Lighthouse takes itself seriously so at least deserves credit for trying although the result isn't anything special. The killer ultimately is another silent, emotionless type, the hero naturally happens to be someone accused of murder who isn't guilty.

Essentially a ship crashes leaving the criminals and officers to try surviving. Some manage to reach the nearby lighthouse. The only problem is the serial killer Leo Rook has escaped and already killed the lighthouse workers.

Actually there are good suspense scenes as certain characters try to avoid the killer. Unfortunately for slasher fans, the kills aren't terribly creative. At least it has good pacing and thus avoids being boring.

Visually it looked great, but it fell into madman hacks people to death in unimaginative ways with no suspense or caring for characters crap video territory very quickly. It's all been done before and a million times better in loads of other straight to video slasher shockers. Tony Imi was too good for them!

With Lighthouse at last we see a lottery funded co production that is trying to appeal to a mass market. Hunter has with this film managed to demonstrate that he is adept at handling action and tension while keeping the chit chat to a minimum. Some of the performances are below par but with the money he had £i.5 million we can see where Hunter has put it and it is obviously not on the performers. Notable exceptions being Don Warrington and Paul Brooke. Where the money has gone is on the set peices which are well planned and show sadistic delight in the subject matter. The production design is superb although perhaps let down by some indiffrerent cinematography in places. The film brings nothing new to the genre but Hunter does a good job with his first film. Perhaps the saddest aspect to all this is that it is inevitable that Hunter will cross the pond and work within the Hollywood system. A good watch

"Lighthouse" was briefly released in theatres in March 2000, before ending up on video under the title Dead Of Night. Basically this is an excellent slasher film. Several very effective sequences between the killer and the victims make the film quite suspensful. The movie takes itself seriously unlike most of the current crop of "horror movies". The acting is passable and I liked the choice of setting and the way the film is generally set up. There is a decent amount of gore too. Lighthouse/Dead Of Night is worth a look ! It's like a British version of the 80's American slasher film only made in the late 90's after the genre became a joke and we all forgot horror movies can still be scary!

Serial killer thriller horror is actually fairly entertaining, but does require a temporary abandonment of common sense.

James Purefoy is Spader, a prisoner aboard a transport ship taking a crew of inmates to prison. Unfortunately, the ship runs into trouble and sinks, leaving only a few survivors. Spader is one of the said survivors, as is Rook, a psychopath who kills anyone he sees. The small band of survivors, including Spader, set up stall in the lighthouse which is on the land the survivors reach, and aware that Rook is out there, endeavour to protect themselves.

Lighthouse is a British horror, which generally have a gritty feel to them. This one is no different. It certainly has that hard edge we come to expect from UK horror like 28 Days Later etc.

It also generates a pretty atmospheric facade, showing up moody storms and the isolated lighthouse. Decent work was done here.

The direction is generally pretty clear, and doesn't confuse too much. It does a good job of keeping the pace fairly quick.

In a technical sense though, the dialogue is a slight problem with very murky delivery in places. I am unsure if the actors specifically muddied their lines or if it was just a bad sound system, but some of what is said is decidedly incoherent.

The acting is generally mediocre, with one particularly awful performance from Don Warrington who was hopelessly miscast. The guy is a thesp, not a jibbering wreck as he was asked to play here. He struggles obviously at times, and one can only have sympathy with him.

The rest gamely chug on, with Purefoy being the handsome and charismatic male lead and doing a reasonable job of it.

The last flaw though, with Lighthouse, is that there are just too many daft moments. Too many occasions logic is dismissed and reason flies out of the window. As such this is not exactly the most realistic of horrors but as long as you accept you're not getting common sense, it's passable enough.

Indeed, as long as you can dismiss the stupidity of much of it, it is actually OK and worth a couple of hours of your time. There are certainly much worse efforts out there.