Lights Out (2016) Review

Not posted anything for a while after being distracted by various non horror TV shows and games so I set a poll on my Twitter page and Lights Out won as the next review I should post. I’d seen the trailer for this some time ago and have been looking forward to it for what seems like ages even though it’s probably only a couple of months. So here’s my thoughts on the new horror film……….

Director: David F. Sandberg

Writers: Eric Heisserer (screenplay), David F. Sandberg (based on the short film by)

Stars: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Maria Bello

Run Time: 81 minutes

Budget: $4.9million estimated

Trivia – David F. Sandberg decided to focus on practical effects and avoided as much CGI as possible.

Trivia – Made back its entire production budget on its opening day at the box office.

Lights Out starts off with a bloke working away at night doing some sort of job inside a dimly light building, he talks to his son over the internet who mentions that his mum is talking to herself again. After making a few phone calls the man is clearly busy when one of his employee’s comes to warn him that they saw something creepy every time they turned the light out.

The man sends her home and then makes his own way out but he also notices something lurking in the darkness. It doesn’t take long to notice that the Babadook looking woman in the dark can only move in the dark and fears the light, unluckily for him the lights soon all go out.

It’s not as easy to stay in the light as you think

We then meet the man’s son who is having trouble sleeping due to strange things happening in the darkness of the night and mum who is completely bonkers. The young boy does have the good luck of his sister who experienced similar as a child. She is soon there to help him out and move him away from the clearly mad mother.

As things turn out there seems to be some sort of spirit beastie linked to the world by the mother. It clearly has a hard time accepting anyone else in the mothers life and haunts the sister and brother from the darkness trying to attack them when it can, however if they’re quick with the lights it cannot hurt them.

All this leads to some digging around from the sister to find out what the hell this thing is and where the hell it’s from. All relating back to the mum who may not be as mad as everyone thinks, as usual this all leads to a final battle at night (obviously) with the shadowy darkness lurking freak, which ends in an unexpected way.

The Good

• The small cast helps us to get to know the main four characters of the film.
• Surprisingly they managed to make the boyfriend of the sister pretty likable which is normally quite hard to do.
• There’s a creepy atmosphere whenever the darkness dwelling beastie appears, I mean you really would crap your pants if everytime you turned the light out there was something lurking and scratching the floor before attacking you.
• Teresa Palmer as the sister Rebecca is really good.
• Gabriel Bateman as the young brother Martin is fantastically convincing, he might be young but he’s already appeared in quite a few things and could turn into a very fine actor as he grows up.
• The effects may only be someone lurking the shadows but they are done real well.

The Bad

• Although I liked the small cast it really does mean a very low kill count for the film.
• Stupid cops.
• The boyfriend is too lucky.

There’s not too much to dislike about this film even the bad points I’ve listed aren’t really that much of a big deal. This proves that there are still some very watchable horror films out there today despite people complaining that they don’t make them like they used to. If anything ghost/haunting type films are being done arguably better than ever. It’s also good for the horror genre to throw out some main stream(ish) films now and then. Overall this is really worth a watch, at just over 80 minutes it’s a quick movie with a simple storyline and a nice creepy atmosphere to the chasey type scenes. Go give it a watch!

Overall Score – 7.5/10

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