When the legendary Edgar Allan Poe passed away in 1849, he left behind an unfinished story called The Light-House, written in the style of a journal being kept by a lighthouse keeper who has some worries about how safe his lighthouse might be.
Presented with the chance to shoot a movie at the Point San Luis Lighthouse in San Luis Obispo, California, a lighthouse that has been standing on the shore there since 1890, director Benjamin Cooper teamed with screenwriter Carl Edge to craft a film based on Poe's last story and inspired by the classic Roger Corman Poe adaptations.
The result is LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER, which stars Vernon Wells (THE ROAD WARRIOR, COMMANDO) as the eponymous character. The story Cooper and Edge came up with goes like this:
A young man awakens alone on a remote beach, marooned there by a violent storm. Above the the rocky crags, a lighthouse stands like a sentinel. Injured and suffering from amnesia, the man seeks the help of Walsh, the enigmatic lighthouse keeper. Walsh tells him they are stranded until the ferry arrives in two weeks, and insists they are the sole inhabitants of the peninsula. But the man is haunted by fleeting glimpses of a beautiful young woman, and plagued by visions of hideous phantoms reaching out from the depths. As this horror tale races towards a mind bending finale, the man must confront the grotesque denizens of the night, or heed the lighthouse keeper's cryptic warning to "Always keep a light burning!"
Wells' co-stars include Matt O'Neill, Rachel Riley, Monty Wall, Carl Edge, S. Daxton Balzer, and John Spencer File.
With LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER completed and making the festival rounds, a trailer has now arrived online to give us a look at Cooper's Poe-inspired film. You can check it out right here: