Lights Out – Review

You can always tell if a movie was scary by how you behave after it is over.

I loved watching scary movies as a kid, but the fun would always take a dark turn when the credits rolled, and suddenly I was left alone…in the dark…in silence.  The act of moving from the couch to the kitchen became a harrowing experience.  All of the shadows would take take shape, and I would have to repeat to myself that there is DEFINITELY NOT A PALE-FACED GHOUL FOLLOWING ME DOWN THE HALLWAY.

Sometimes it was easier just to stay on the couch until morning.

“Lights Out” is a horror film where the scares are based around those sensations.  It taps into a primal fear of the dark that EVERYONE shares (at least a little bit).

The film starts with a bang, and hardly lets up during its relatively short (80min) run-time.  Because of that, I won’t give many details of the plot away.  The film follows 20-something Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) and her little brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) as they try to determine why their mother Sophie (Maria Bello), is becoming increasingly mentally disturbed.  Most importantly, they are trying to figure out WHO IS DIANA??…the mysterious figure that Sophie talks to in the dark, behind closed doors.

Director David F. Sandberg managed to take his 2013 short film of the same name and stretch it into a feature quite nicely.  As tempting as it may be, I encourage you not to make the same mistake as me and watch it before “Lights Out”.  It would be best to avoid it so the scares in the feature are more shocking.  I will say that the short film is one of the most unnerving shorts I have ever seen, and it is very worthy of the attention it received.

The thing I enjoyed most about “Lights Out” was how it managed to genuinely freak me out.  It’s not a film driven by characters or a deeply engrossing story.  The scares are carefully crafted in a way that reminded me of the best haunted house attractions.  The emphasis on darkness requires the viewer’s full attention to look at every shot carefully, waiting in tense anticipation.  Some of the visuals of Diana lurking in the dark are truly the stuff of nightmares.

Despite the plot being fairly standard horror fare, “Lights Out” is incredibly effective at scaring its audience.  By the final frame, I was quite spooked (and wasn’t thrilled about having to take my dog outside into the shadowy, terrifying world right after).  As a whole, it’s not a groundbreaking film by any means, but it did manage to scare me more than any other mainstream film this year.  It doesn’t over-inflate itself with heavy handed dialogue or a convoluted story.  Just shut off the lights, and your brain, and get scared.

After all, isn’t that what these movies are for?

7 1/2 bad friends named Diana out of 10

HPC.