**Possible Spoilers ahead**
A stateside video outfit gave this the same title as a venerable old thriller from the 1940s but the two flicks are as different as night and day. This seems to be another attempt to revive the Grade D slasher genre. Don't hold your breath waiting.
A murderer escapes from a prison ship in the North Atlantic and washes up on a lighthouse island--then proceeds to wreck the ship, and stalk and slay the survivors. (Not one dopey sex-crazed teenager in sight, thank God!) LIGHTHOUSE/DEAD OF NIGHT suffers from perpetually dim photography and many predictable situations--you just KNOW one character's two-way radio is going to start squawking away at precisely the wrong time, and that the crew's last flare is going to be crammed where it will do someone absolutely no good. There are too many slow passages between murders but the killings feature enough throat-slitting and decapitation to make gorehounds stand up and cheer. There's also an unbearable scene of a woman's hair being ripped out by the roots. The acting is competent as one would expect from a British cast and the setting is unique--I haven't seen a murder movie set in or near a lighthouse since 1972's TOWER OF EVIL aka HORROR ON SNAPE ISLAND. Worth one look for slasher flick completists.
A stateside video outfit gave this the same title as a venerable old thriller from the 1940s but the two flicks are as different as night and day. This seems to be another attempt to revive the Grade D slasher genre. Don't hold your breath waiting.
A murderer escapes from a prison ship in the North Atlantic and washes up on a lighthouse island--then proceeds to wreck the ship, and stalk and slay the survivors. (Not one dopey sex-crazed teenager in sight, thank God!) LIGHTHOUSE/DEAD OF NIGHT suffers from perpetually dim photography and many predictable situations--you just KNOW one character's two-way radio is going to start squawking away at precisely the wrong time, and that the crew's last flare is going to be crammed where it will do someone absolutely no good. There are too many slow passages between murders but the killings feature enough throat-slitting and decapitation to make gorehounds stand up and cheer. There's also an unbearable scene of a woman's hair being ripped out by the roots. The acting is competent as one would expect from a British cast and the setting is unique--I haven't seen a murder movie set in or near a lighthouse since 1972's TOWER OF EVIL aka HORROR ON SNAPE ISLAND. Worth one look for slasher flick completists.