Le phare de l'angoisse

I bought this movie at my local video store the other day for the whooping sum of 94 cents. I figured I could`nt lose. About 10 minutes in I was thinking that I had thrown away 94 cents and was about to eject it from the VCR and throw it in the trash. However, it began to show some promise in the thrills and suspense area so I continued to watch and ended up very pleased to add this film to my collection. Even though there is nothing original about this movie (psycho killer stalks people on an island with large knife) it is well made and well acted by a cast of unknowns. At times the suspense is riveting. I would recommend this movie for at least a one time watch.

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!

More like outhouse as it's got the same contents. This is probably one of the worst horror films I've ever seen, and I've watched some utter drivel in my time!

A ship flounders onto a lighthouse island with it's crew of convicts and wardens and a crazed killer attempts to murder them all....and... er....that's it. Cue lots of gore and screaming and running about. This could have been so much better but it's totally spoilt by the overwrought acting by people more used to the histrionics of British soap operas.You can almost see the angst in every delivered line of dialogue from this bunch of 'lighthouse luvvies.' Drama workshop and improv style makes for a pretentious story that plays like a student film.Even the swearing is strictly from RADA drama school, i.e: 'farking.' It pains me to admit it but we Brits just can't seem to make a decent horror film anymore,at least not a straight slasher genre type which this fails so dismally at. 'Darkness Falls' was a pretty bad lighthouse based horror but it's a classic compared to this cliché ridden overblown mess.

"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.