Beneath the Light review
Impossible memories haunt an isolated lighthouse worker.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Beneath the Light
Directed by John Baumgartner
Written by John Baumgartner and Cindy Davis Seng
Starring Zach Tinker and John Pyper-Ferguson
Beneath the Light Review
Early into Beneath the Light’s story a character visiting its lighthouse setting comments that its “at most one-third as creepy as I thought it would be”. That’s a good way to describe the horror elements in the movie. When you think about someone in an isolated lighthouse haunted by unexplainable memories…you’d think about creaking floors and ghostly sounds coming from darkened corners. You’ll probably also think about that excellent Robert Eggers film set in a lighthouse. Beneath the Light is doing something different with its story despite a somewhat familiar setting. It benefits from doing so by finding a tone that fits its own unique story.
At its core, Beneath the Light is a mystery. We just aren’t sure what the mystery is exactly for an impressive amount of time. It does have a heck of a starting point to offer, however. Jacob (Zach Tinker) takes a job restoring an old lighthouse following the death of his mother. He has memories of visiting it as a child. In fact, it’s the only thing he can seem to remember about his childhood at all. He remembers his friend Claire who he explored the lighthouse with…but not how or why they stopped hanging out. Claire’s father (John Pyper-Ferguson) owns the lighthouse…but doesn’t believe Jacob’s stories about being his daughter’s friend despite the number of specific things about her he remembers. Claire, it turns out, has been dead since 1999. The same year Jacob was born.
Beneath the Light is all about memories. Jacob has impossible ones…opening the door for a mystery that the movie inevitably pays off quite well. Before it settles its focus on that, however, it does employ some light horror elements. The movie is aiming for eerie not terrifying. Which is the right tone for where the story is heading. Jacob is haunted…though not in the traditional sense. Once the story reaches its climax…its impulses with the only slightly spooky design turn out to be the correct ones.
The truth is that a lot of Beneath the Light is surprisingly bright and almost cheery. Jacob is courted by a local girl named Olivia (Ana Nicolle Chavez) leading to a lot of early scenes set in daylight. Olivia disappears from the story for some long stretches of time…but the story spends more of it than you’d expect in the light. It’s only when Jacob is left alone at night that the darkness truly begins to creep into the story and the film itself. Another choice that beautifully compliments where this mystery is going to end up.
Because Beneath the Light truly is about Jacob’s memories. How can he know things he shouldn’t about a person he couldn’t have spent time with? What is haunting him becomes more important than the haunting that is occurring. There’s a reason for everything. That goes for both the narrative elements and the way that co-writer/director John Baumgartner chooses to examine them. It would have been an easy call to use the excellent real world location for a simple ghost story…laying the mood music and scary effects on thick. There is some of that in Beneath the Light…but it never overwhelms the story.
Obviously, any movie that prioritizes story (especially when it’s largely set in a single location) needs to have strong performances to maximize it. Beneath the Light gets great work out of its minimal cast. The bulk of the picture rests on Tinker’s shoulders. He spends a good chunk of Beneath the Light alone on screen. There’s also a showcase for a bit of a mental breakdown. Tinker very ably carries the load. Chavez pops up on occasion to offer a view beyond the lighthouse. She generally brings the sunshine with her…until the story’s darkness becomes too thick to break through. John Pyper-Ferguson creates a somewhat ambiguous figure in the lighthouse owner. As Jacob becomes more suspicious of him…Pyper-Ferguson does a good job keeping any options on the table with his character.
As hackneyed as it is to say that a location serves as one of the starts of the show…the lighthouse definitely serves as one of the stars of the show. It’s a fantastic location that lets you feel every creek and offers beautiful vistas to look at. It’s a perfect place for a story about memories you can’t quite get a handle on…and to revisit years later. You could see access to the lighthouse being the catalyst for reverse engineering a story to take place at. Beneath the Light has something more internal in mind with its story…but the location is the perfect place for it.
Scare Value
The horror elements of Beneath the Light play a distant second fiddle to its intriguing central mystery. That’s fine…just don’t go into it expecting an effectively spooky lighthouse horror movie. The tone fits where the mystery is heading, however. The mystery itself is an interesting one. It’s set up well and delivers in the end. Beneath the Light uses its great setting and some thoughts on how our memories can fail us to deliver a good trauma-based mystery.
3/5
Beneath the Light Link
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