Horror understands that what is most desired is the same as what is most feared. Scholars of religion often overlook this while the makers of horror films bank on it. Consider the critically acclaimed oeuvre of Robert Eggers, both his 2015 film, The Witch, and his more recent The Lighthouse (2019).
If you’ve ever been isolated from other people—say, in solitary confinement, or even in a room with a medical device so dangerous that the operators have to leave while you’re left alone with its buzzing and clanging—you will understand The Lighthouse. Horror has long recognized the psychological power of isolation. Ripley and crew aboard the Nostromo, Wendy, Danny and Jack at the Overlook, a handful of scientists at an Antarctic research base, the list could go on and on. Showcasing Roger Eggers’ trademark verisimilitude, The Lighthouse traps two wickies—lighthouse keepers—both with secrets, far from the reach of the rest of civilization. They’re trapped between a deity and sexuality.
The men, Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) and Thomas Howard (Robert Pattinson), with their twin drives for dominance and sexual release, are stranded on a small island, both isolated yet never alone. The source of the terror isn’t immediately obvious, but it soon ties into religion and sex. Viewers ask which Thomas is insane. Are they both? And why does their shared Christian name evoke Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) from Eggers’ first feature, The Witch? Thomas derives from the word “twin” as Eggers surely knows. And this pair of movies are bookends of gendered sexual fears in the face of religious belief.
Dafoe and Pattinson isolated with the lighthouse
The Lighthouse endangers two secluded males. They might easily fall victim to the weather. Starvation haunts them when the supply ship is delayed and their provisions are ruined. Their largest threat, however, is clearly one another. Howard masturbates in the utility shed, but Wake knows. Above both, atop the phallic tower, the light itself—God? Mermaid? Devil?—keeps constant watch. Wake stumbles out of its presence naked, and Howard witnesses it. Men alone but under constant surveillance of an unidentified divinity. Sex and religion are knotted together thickly, but in an utterly masculine context.
Turning back to The Witch, threats of female sexuality abound. A family banished for its extreme religion settles near a forest inhabited by an actual witch. William has a large family to feed: wife Katherine, daughters Thomasin and Mercy, sons Caleb, Jonas, and Samuel. Their biblical names fit the time and story frame, but one stands out: Thomasin. Her feminine threat twins with the male commination of The Lighthouse. As her brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) pointedly notices, Thomasin is becoming a woman; and they live where no potential mates might be found. Could incest be a solution? How can a single woman find value in a religion that teaches salvation via motherhood? All falls under the shadow of the lurking witch, watching from the woods.
Thomasin and Caleb isolated in the wilderness
When infant Samuel is kidnapped literally before Thomasin’s covered eyes, children playing within a biblical worldview suggest she’s a witch. In the seventeenth century such an accusation is deadly serious, especially for a female. The real witch, naked, smears the rendered body of Samuel onto her own, regaining her youth and feminine allure. Both films isolate their victims far beyond the reach of society. Both deny sexuality yet wear it openly. Both threaten death to any who give in to biology and they do so via religion.
Thomasin’s brother Caleb, lost in the forbidden woods, is found by the witch. Puritanically admonished by his father—all are sinful and deserving of Hell—he is nevertheless seduced by her. The seduction leads to his death. Thomasin, who finds her naked brother in the rain, is blamed. Women, in this world, can do no right. Eggers is as uncompromising as history. Once the accusation of witchery has been made against a female it can never be fully retracted. This is religion proactively punishing women out of fear and ignorance. Indeed, God is more frightening than the titular witch.
The Lighthouse also blends religious threat and sexuality. Female temptation briefly appears in the form of a mermaid, but the male struggle is for access to the top of that phallic tower. Wake claims it for his own—he is the senior officer. He declares he is wed to it. Howard, having to resort to onanism, wants the satisfaction that Wake obviously finds in that light. The desire to attain the ineffable brings Howard to his knees before Wake. These men are trapped in biology’s cruel game under unblinking omniscient observation. The light is both divine and diabolical. Indeed, it appears almost Cthulhu-like when Wake appears as Proteus, himself a divine character.
Pattinson’s Thomas seeking salvation in the light
Both movies turn, as horror often does, on the pivot of religion. Fear of sexuality is the motive force. In The Witch, when Black Phillip finally reveals himself as the Devil, he has Thomasin remove her clothes before she writes her name in the book. The religious prohibition against nudity—more Puritan than strictly biblical—hangs over her tentative final walk to a witch’s sabbath. There’s sexual release in the ceremony. The Lighthouse’s Greek deities: Proteus, Triton, and Prometheus—are puissant but Howard is censured in Wake’s log for his self-abuse. A religious offense, Wake proclaims it a moral violation as only he has access to the release the light obviously gives.
Howard wonders about the fate of Wake’s previous second. The older man claims his helper went insane supposing there was an enchantment in the light. While this could be dismissed as puerile fantasy—no grown man believes in magic—Wake follows it up with the word “salvation.”
The Bible’s Thomas is explicitly called “the twin.” He’s a disciple most known for his doubting, but over the years it has been suggested he was the twin of Jesus himself. Uneven twins where one holds the keys to the kingdom and the other only uncertainty. A Thomas proclaims salvation atop the tower. The other Thomas kills his master. His subsequent encounter with the light leads to Howard’s Promethian death. Thomasin finds release by shedding her shift, along with her family religion, before the Devil. She flies.
Thomasin’s release
In both The Witch and The Lighthouse, the mix of sexuality and religion leads to death. One focuses on female experience and the other male. Desire in the realm of religion leads to eternal punishment. Doubting Thomas or Thomasin both showcase fear where sex and the divine blur.
You can stream both The Lighthouse and The Witch on Amazon:
Steve A. Wiggins is an independent scholar who has taught at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Carroll College, and Rutgers and Montclair State Universities. He is the author of Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies (McFarland, 2018). Check out his website. Steve has previously published on The Marked Ones and The Curse of La Llorona for Horror Homeroom.
And Steve’s book can be found on Amazon:
