Lights Out: Light On for Horror Flicks?

I have seen nothing about this film prior to watching Lights Out for myself. It looks, sounds, and feels like a high budget remake of an independent short horror film. It unintentionally writes a love letter from Hollywood to freeware horror games while maintaining and embracing a unique, simple, and fully exploited idea for a monster.

They avoid annoying exposition dumps, write characters that are neither superstitious or unobservant, push for real and creative improvised solutions that make sense, and never stoop to cheap thrills like more bodies or excessive blood. The restraint on music and effects increases the overall quality as the inability to get a good look at the monster and the oppressive silence punctuated by the flicker of light bulbs draws the audience into the tension and paranoia of our protagonists. While the lack of memorable music and repeated jump-scare sounds take away from the film, the filmmakers still made the audience terrified of the dark for the duration of the movie.

Sometimes the writing succeeds at grounding the characters, but the base story still feels predictable at times despite the unique characters and their haughty, presumptive, and occasionally tongue in cheek attitudes about the things that attack them. The movie never, under any circumstance, becomes a comedy or satire; yet I found myself chuckling at how much they try not to fall into the pitfalls of the idiots in slasher flicks. Although I loved the film and highly recommend seeing it if you want to scare yourself, I absolutely hated one part of the ending...

Avast, reader! Spoilers ahead! 

The film's monster goes by Diana and exists as a poltergeist because the depressed, not quite sane mother remembers being friends with the violent sunlight hating girl at the Mulberry Hill psychiatric hospital where they both went as young girls. Diana, the monster who stalks the dark and tries to kill Martin, Rebecca, and Brett, only exists when the mother feels psychologically at her worst and not taking her pills. The climax of the film, after Diana kills two police officers and corners Rebecca, features the mother killing herself to remove the demon for good. I hate this choice and worry about it setting a poor precedent for other horror movies or films in general. Depression and other psychological disorders require long hours of personalized treatment, just one of which happens to be medication, which some find essential in their ongoing battle. The monster in this seems connected to her psychological issues, but rather than finding her newly blossoming relationship with her daughter and son and coping that way, the film presents the only solution to her monster as suicide. While I fully admit that the film tries to show all other avenues failing and this unfortunate shot as a sacrifice to ensure the safety and happiness of her children, it still feels too close, too real to the actual problems of the psychologically depressed for me to not call it out. I felt terrible when this poor lady took her life, even though she is a fictional character. How one copes and lives with the problem is the true noble sacrifice, and I hope we get films that treat mental illness as something more than a means to an end or a bid for an award.

Story: 80/100 Characters: 90/100 Effects: 90/100 Music: 70/100 Overall Quality: 80/100 Average: 82/100

Pragmus Omega

(Pragmus Omega)

Chief Editor and Co-founder