The Lighthouse

In the 1890s, Ephraim Winslow begins a four-week stint as a "wickie" (lighthouse keeper) on an isolated island off the coast of New England, under the supervision of former sailor Thomas Wake. Winslow discovers a small scrimshaw of a mermaid and keeps it in his jacket. Wake proves to be demanding, and Winslow empties chamber pots, maintains the machinery, carries heavy kerosene tanks up the stairs, and paints the lighthouse. Wake bars Winslow from the lantern room; Winslow discovers Wake disrobes before the light every night. During his stay on the island, Winslow begins to hallucinate sea monsters and logs floating in the sea, and masturbates to the mermaid on the scrimshaw. Winslow is bothered by a one-eyed gull, but Wake warns him against killing it under the superstitious belief that gulls are reincarnated sailors. Wake reveals to Winslow that his previous wickie died after losing his sanity. Winslow tells Wake he's a former timberman from Maine who was stationed in Canada and is now seeking a new trade.
The day before his scheduled departure, Winslow discovers a dead gull fouling the drinking water in the cistern. The one-eyed gull attacks him and he bludgeons it to death. The wind drastically changes and Winslow and Wake spend the night getting drunk during a severe storm that prevents the lighthouse tender from collecting them. As Winslow empties the chamber pots, he discovers the beached body of a mermaid, which waves and howls at him. He flees back to the cottage, where Wake informs him the storm has spoiled their rations. Winslow assumes the tender is merely a day late, but Wake says that they have already been stranded for weeks.
As the storm continues to rage, Winslow and Wake get drunk every night and alternate between moments of intimacy and hostility. One night, Winslow tries unsuccessfully to steal the lantern room keys from Wake and contemplates murdering him. Winslow later sees the one-eyed head of Wake's previous wickie in a lobster trap. Winslow drunkenly confesses to Wake that his real name is Thomas Howard, and he assumed the identity of Ephraim Winslow, a cruel foreman in Canada whom he deliberately allowed to drown during a log drive. Howard has a menacing vision of Wake accusing Howard of "spilling [his] beans" and runs to the dory to try to leave the island. Wake destroys the boat with an axe. Back at their lodgings, Wake claims it was Howard who hacked up the dory, driven mad by his confession.
Howard and Wake run out of alcohol and turn to drinking sweetened turpentine. That night, a giant wave crashes through the wall of their cottage and floods it. In the morning, Howard finds Wake's logbook, in which Wake has criticized him as a drunken and incompetent employee and recommended he be fired without pay. The two men argue, and Howard attacks Wake while hallucinating the mermaid, the real Winslow, and Wake as a Proteus-like figure. Howard beats Wake into submission and takes him to the hole at the base of the lighthouse to bury him alive. Before losing consciousness, Wake describes a "Promethean" punishment that awaits those who look in the lantern, and Howard takes the keys to the lantern room.
Howard goes to get a cigarette, and Wake returns and strikes him with the axe. Howard disarms and kills Wake before ascending the lighthouse. In the lantern room, the Fresnel lens opens to Howard, who reaches in and screams before falling down the lighthouse steps. Howard ends up lying nude on the rocks with a damaged eye as a flock of gulls peck at his exposed organs.