7 Creepy Lighthouses Featured In Horror Films

There is a sense of mystery that surrounds a lighthouse. They sit at the edge of the coast away from civilisation, and not many people have ever been inside one. Even its architecture is strange: a single “room” at the top of a spiral staircase.

This sense of mystery is seen throughout the 2010 Scorsese film, Shutter Island.

As Teddy, a US Marshall, investigates the disappearance of a patient at a psychiatric facility, his investigations begin to stir up paranoid thoughts. And those thoughts lead to a lighthouse at the edge of the island.

It may be a small cameo compared to more sea-centric films, but the lighthouse in Shutter Island represents the answer to Teddy’s mystery, and to the questions of the viewer. It taunts him, standing just out of reach on the dangerous rocks of the coast.

A lighthouse is a strange building, but this one is even odder: rather than there being a light at the top, there is the office of Dr Cawley. This weirdly out of place room adds to the unsettling dream-like nature of the entire film.

In the end, it feels like the perfect place for the mystery to come together. It wouldn’t have been quite so strange or dramatic had it been set in just another part of the asylum.

And strange and dramatic are two qualities we love to see in horror.