Lights Out - movie review
Lights Out
Plot: When her little brother, Martin, experiences the same events that once tested her sanity, Rebecca works to unlock the truth behind the terror, which brings her face to face with an entity that has an attachment to their mother, Sophie.
Cast: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Maria Bello
Director: David F. Sandberg
Rating: 15 (strong supernatural threat, bloody images)
Runtime: 1hr 21 mins
Release Date: Friday 19th August 2016
On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. After watching Lights Out, those bloody lights are staying on. 2016 has been a pretty decent year for horror films. There was a misstep earlier with The Forest but apart from that, we've had The Conjuring 2, The Witch and from what I'm hearing Don't Breathe and Blair Witch have been getting rave reviews. Lights Out is based upon a short film that terrified everyone, myself included. You turn off a light, a demon appears. You turn it back on, she's gone. Hahaha NOPE!
In the lead role, somehow crawling away from the wreckage that was the Point Break remake, is Teresa Palmer. She can safely put that heap of crap behind her as she's great in Lights Out. If you look at most horror films (even the classics) the female lead is pretty useless. She makes bad decisions, acts like an airhead and then winds up dying in an unspectacular fashion. Palmer does something different because she actually has a brain. And she uses it. Her brain isn't there just to be splattered against a wall. I bought into the fact that she could handle herself and best of all, she's smart. Do you know how rare it is to find a smart character in a horror film? It's about as rare as an Oompa Loompa running for President. Oh wait... But what impressed me the most about Palmer were the genuine moments of sheer terror. When Rebecca (Palmer) was meant to be shit-scared, she looks shit-scared and subsequently, I was shit-scared. Fending off the demon with Rebecca is her little brother Martin played by Gabriel Bateman. This is a terrific performance by Bateman in a deeply complex role. Lights Out isn't just a film full of scares. It gets deep and emotional when it wanted to and Bateman does very well under this pressure. There's a brilliant scene in which Martin walks in on his mother talking into a cupboard and she asks him if THEY bothered him. The kid has this horrified reaction as anyone else would do if your mum started acting like a schizophrenic freak. He doesn't steal the show nor blow me away thinking that he's going to be the next big thing but he does a good job and that's all I could ask. We also get the obligatory horror relationship between the lead and a significant other. In this instance, it's Bret played by relative unknown Alexander DiPersia. Now, if you've seen many horror films, you'd know that the lifespan of a boyfriend/girlfriend to the main character lasts about as long as it would take Usain Bolt to finish the 100m on steroids. However, I'm pleased to see Sandberg (the director) take a different spin on this archetype and make him engaging and likeable. He's also smart as well. There's a moment involving his character that actually made people in the audience that I was watching it with cheer. DiPersia is very charismatic and charming in the role and he has good onscreen chemistry with Palmer. Finally we have Maria Bello as the mother of Rebecca and Martin, and without revealing the whole plot of Lights Out, she is very significant as to why this is all happening. I did think that at times of extreme terror, Bello definitely slips into yelling and overdramatic mode which is a shame because she's a really good actress. All things considered, I just wanted to scream at her character and say "Get yo scary ass to hospital now!"
Considering that David Sandberg was the one to direct the original short and now he's been given the chance to make it feature length is incredible and proves that anyone can have their big break. By the way, if you haven't seen the short that started it all, you can check it out here. Concept is what all horror movies strive to nail. We've had the birth of found footage, the idea of The Purge (shame those movies didn't turn out well) and now a fresh take on the fear of the dark. Personally, I've been trepidatious of the dark but never scared. What Sandberg is able to accomplish by preying on this fear is extraordinary. It's consistently fresh, inventive and finds all new ways to creep you out. He even shows us clever tricks when the lights are off. I fell into that trap of looking into the background hoping to find the demon lurking before it jumps out and still it caught me off guard. But it's not just a simple light switch that causes the scares. To stop it from getting boring, there's the use of slow fading neon lights and gunshots as we see the demon appear and disappear. Best of all, it's freaking scary. Just the look of the demon alone is petrifying. When her hand slowly crawls around the door, it's spine-chilling and shows just what horror should be. There are jump scares in this but here's why I liked them in Lights Out. They're earned and they still feel realistic. There's no loud jarring noise that has no place in the film nor are they jumping out at the audience when the character is in a completely different area. The jumpscares are legitimately scary and jumpy. So whilst the demon may look and act cool, the downfall of Lights Out is the backstory of the demon that is called 'Diana'. The reasoning behind how she behaves and her motives are all chucked in during one almighty heavy exposition scene. It's very blatant and obvious that a marching band could have appeared singing "This is the exposition! This is the exposition!" and even that wouldn't have been as glaringly plain to see. Ultimately, the reveal about Diana was underwhelming and just seemed kind of lazy. And then, we have the connection to the mother and how that then causes fragmentations amongst the already dysfunctional family. Whilst I thought the family dynamic might have been cool on paper, I felt that it came across too much like a soap opera. The mother and the neglected daughter. The son trapped in the middle of it all. Remove the horror and it could have been an episode of Corrie. Sure, the depression and mental health aspect is interesting and new especially in a horror environment but it all felt tacked on when I just wanted to see Diana hide in the dark.
Scares, scares, scares and more scares. Lights Out is one scary film and a brilliantly crafted movie. Similar to the first Conjuring, it's a fantastic horror film but an equally good piece of cinema. All of the acting is great and it left me leaving my house look like a mini sun with all the lights on.
My Verdict: 8/10
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