25 Best Horror Films of the Past Decade

Robert Eggers’ 2019 follow-up to The Witch chronicles the downward spiral of two lighthouse keepers (the completely committed Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson). Set on a remote New England island in the 1890s (but filmed in Nova Scotia in 2018) and shot in 35mm black and white in the boxy 1.19 to 1 aspect ratio, the film traps viewers in a creepy tale of madness full of bravura filmmaking that could be viewed as a pitch-black buddy comedy or as a paranoid nightmare of crashing seas, whipping wind, and violent urges.

“Eggers has created a film of disturbing horror, absurdist comedy and probing psychodrama which defies the generic boundaries as it breaks through them. The Lighthouse is a saltwater gothic masterpiece.” —John Bleasdale, CineVue