Page - 205 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

awareness of, if not respect for, biblical texts and Christian traditions. In a brief tangential scene, the cemetery workers at a funeral sing a fourth-wall-breaking hymn, “I Shall Not Be Moved”, as they use a backhoe to dig a grave. In another scene during their bike conversation in the first vignette, as Mike confesses that he had sex with Kyle’s fiancée, Kyle declares, “You’re a real-life Judas.” “Well, I guess that makes you like Jesus”, replies Mike with deadpan sincerity. In a late vignette at Kyle’s wedding to a new beau, Kyle’s sisters choose to read cer- tain verses from the books of Ephesians and Revelation, such as “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord” and descriptions of the whore of Babylon. All of this is comical even as it demonstrates awareness of biblical content, at least enough to make an effective joke. The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, US 2019) is Eggers’s masterful follow-up to his remarkable religious horror film The Witch (Robert Eggers, US 2016) and won the FIPRESCI (film critics) prize. It is a poetic and nightmarish supernatu- ral thriller imbued with psychological horror. Set in a late-19th century coastal lighthouse in the northern Atlantic, The Lighthouse centers on two men, the grizzled and gruff lightkeeper Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) and his aloof sec- ond-in-command Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson). As the isolated and storm-swept environment takes its toll on their psyches, visions of mermaids and mythological gods plague Winslow’s mind. Indeed, Wake’s former helper Fig. 1: The Climb (Michael Angelo Covino, US 2019). Press Still: Cannes Film Festival. Fig. 2: The Lighthouse (Robert Eggers, US 2019). Press Still: Cannes Film Festival. Festival Review: 72nd Festival de Cannes | 205www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 204–213