lights-outLights Out
Director: David F. Sandberg
Cast: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Maria Bello
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons

What started off as a very short and very, VERY creepy video on YouTube (seriously, if you haven’t seen the 2 minute 40 second short film, do so at once) has now become a feature film. Can an idea that was expertly done in under three minutes be stretched out to fill an hour and 21 minutes without feeling padded to within an inch of its life? Furthermore, this isn’t the first film where darkness was the enemy (anyone still remember Darkness Falls, and Wes Craven Presents They? Yeah, I didn’t think so, and if you do, I’m sorry). So this movie had a few knocks going against it right from the start — did it overcome them? Well grab a trusty flashlight, one with reliable and new batteries, and let’s find out.

The movie starts off with a supernatural attack in a warehouse, which basically sets up the rules. A man is stalked by a woman-shaped horror that cannot come into the light. But should the Lights go Out…well after that guy is dead, we meet a young woman who is all spooky and depressed (you can tell because she has heavy metal band posters on her wall) with commitment issues. She has a good boyfriend, an estranged mother who suffers from some mental health problems, and a young brother who is suffering from something worse: the aforementioned lady in the dark. The boy begs his big sis for help, and she reluctantly gets involved.

It seems that mommy may have a reason she’s mad: she’s hiding a deadly secret. Back when she was a child, she was institutionalized for a bit, and while she was in the hospital there, she met a strange little girl named Diana. Little Diana has the odd habit of “getting inside people’s heads” (that ability is never fully discussed) and the one drawback that she burns in the light, any light, like an albino vampire in the sun. That disadvantage is also never explained, it simply just is. And because of it, Diana was killed many years ago during an experiment to cure her. But naturally, she’s not dead, or at least, not all the way dead. She is now a darkness ghost and a pretty nasty one at that.

As you might guess, there is a big confrontation, naturally at night and, yes, in the dark. There are a whole lot of jump scares, a few good moments of suspense and dread, some fine makeup effects, some not completely horrible uses of CGI, and lots and lots of fun playing with light and shadow. This movie isn’t revolutionary, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and is a standard big studio fright flick, but what it does, it does pretty well.

On to the special features on this new Blu-ray from Warner Brothers — and be sure not to blink or else you’ll miss them. There is a very short collection of deleted scenes. That’s it. Wow. You know, more and more releases from the big production companies are coming out bare bones. I don’t know why that is, but I’m not liking it.

Lights Out is a bigger, but necessarily better, version of the famous short film it is based off of. That does not mean that it’s bad, only that what existed before was so well done, it really didn’t need the “bigger is better” treatment. As its own film, it has more than its share of creepy moments, decent characters you care about, more than competent direction, and it utilizes light and darkness very well. So for all those reasons, I give Lights Out a recommendation.

About Brian M. Sammons

Brian M. Sammons has penned stories that have appeared in the anthologies: Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, Dead but Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Deepest, Darkest Eden and others. He has edited the books; Cthulhu Unbound 3, Undead & Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, Edge of Sundown, Steampunk Cthulhu, Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Atomic Age Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu and Flesh Like Smoke. He is also the managing editor of Dark Regions Press’ Weird Fiction line. For more about this guy that neighbors describe as “such a nice, quiet man” you can check out his infrequently updated webpage here: http://brian_sammons.webs.com/ and follow him on Twitter @BrianMSammons.

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