Poe had always used the setting as an extra character, so the frigid, unforgiving tundra of some distant northern land would really have added to the mood. Poe’s original setting for this story was a bitterly cold island off the coast of Norway. Despite this, the film does a pretty decent job sticking to the overall feel of Poe’s writing, which is really hard to do given the fact that it was filmed in central coast California, which is arguably one of the most beautiful and romantic places on Earth. The source material is super thin so after J.P washed up on shore, the writers could go in any direction they wanted and still tag Poe’s name to it. A psychological horror film based on Poe’s short story of the same name, The Raven is more than a mere adaptation. The Black Catis one of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff’s darkest, creepiest, and most frightening films, especially for its era. The Lighthouse, on the other hand, was partially inspired by a true story.(Yes, that’s right, the legendary Vernon Wells! Who has been in some of my favorite movies from the 80’s including Commando, Mad Max: The Road Warrior, and Innerspace.)Īfter that, there is not much that we can say is influenced by Poe’s final story. The Black Cat (7.0) Despite the lack of color, don’t be fooled. While it's not known whether any of Vita Amlethi is based on a real event, the story serves as the true inspiration behind The Northman. This enrages Amleth, and he vows to seek revenge for the rest of his life. Jealous of his brother's reign, Amleth's uncle Fengo kills Horwendil and takes his wife as his own. The title of the folktale means " The Life of Amleth." As the legend goes, Amleth is a Viking prince who lives comfortably with his father, Horwendil, and his mother, Gerutha. The mythological tale was passed down by word of mouth until it was officially recorded in 1200 during Saxo Grammaticus' extensive research of Danish royal history. The story of The Northmanclosely follows a Norse folktale called Vita Amlethi. After the death of his father at the hands of his uncle, the Viking prince goes on a rampage for the sake of revenge. The Northman is set during the Viking Age and follows Alexander Skarsgård's Amleth. Robert Eggers' latest film, The Northman, isn't based on a wholly true story - instead, it's inspired by an old Norse tale mixed with a dash of Shakespear's Hamlet. It provides more context for the encapsulating mystery to consume its audiences time and again. Although the true story of the Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy is far from the only basis for The Lighthouse, it does open up further speculation. In this way, the Smalls lighthouse tragedy isn't so much a guide to forming Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse's story as it is a reference to capture the lonely, suffocating experience of being stranded on an ocean rock with no means of communicating with the outside world. The final result is a hallucinatory experience that eschews traditional plot structure to mold an atmosphere that resembles the feeling of inevitable despair. Lovecraft, Herman Melville, traditional New England folklore, and Greek mythology in writing the screenplay, particularly seen in The Lighthouse's coda as Wake curses Howard to a " Promethean fate." The Eggers brothers also took inspiration from H.P. While Poe seemed to have barely started the manuscript before he died, the beginning passages hint that the true story would have explored the narrator's growing anxiety from being alone. The script initially started as an adaptation of an unfinished Edgar Allen Poe story similarly called "The Light-House," in which a keeper recounts his isolation through diary entries. It must be noted that The Lighthouse is, in fact, an amalgamation of a myriad of ideas. Yet, in The Lighthouse's true story, the real Howard is rescued by a boat from Milford that takes him back to the mainland. The ending of the Eggers brothers' tale is also decidedly different, with Howard dying as birds peck at him. Wake buries Howard alive before Howard can escape and kill his assailant, but this burial never happened in the real Smalls lighthouse tragedy. The Lighthouse's climactic scenes also deviate from the true story of the Smalls lighthouse tragedy, with Willem Dafoe's Wake and Robbert Pattinson's Howard involved in bloody combat that almost certainly did not transpire in the real version of events. The Eggers brothers also use the event of a dead gull being found inside the lighthouse structure's cistern as a catalyst for the bloody events that follow - but there was no evidence found in the true story of the Smalls lighthouse tragedy to suggest the discovery or subsequent mutilation of any seagulls. Wake also reveals to Howard that his previous Wickie companion died upon the island, a fact the Eggers brothers certainly added to the story to increase the island's foreboding mythos. The differences continue to pile up from here, with Howard witnessing hallucinations of sea monsters while Wake practices bizarre rituals.