LIGHTS OUT (2016)

Studio:       Warner Brothers
Director:    David F. Sandberg
Writer:       Eric Heisserer
Producer:  James Wan, Lawrence Grey, Eric Heisserer
Stars:     Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Alexander DiPersia, Billy Burke, Maria Bello, Alicia Vela-Bailey, Andi Osho

Review Score:

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Summary:

A shadow creature that only appears in darkness torments a family whose troubled mother is tied to the entity’s past.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

After being warned by his employee Esther, Paul Wells is killed while alone at his textiles factory by a shadow creature that only appears when it is dark.

Paul’s young son Martin catches his grieving mother Sophie, Paul’s widow, speaking to something unseen in the darkness of their home. Martin starts seeing the creature in shadows and believes it is trying to attack him when the lights are out.

Unable to sleep at home, Martin falls asleep at school. When his mother doesn’t answer, Martin has Child Services call his older stepsister Rebecca, who lives on her own. Rebecca picks up Martin with her boyfriend Bret and escorts Martin home.

Martin tells his sister that Sophie speaks to someone named Diana. Rebecca tells Martin that Diana isn’t real, and that Sophie merely uses her as a coping mechanism for depression.

Rebecca confronts her mother about getting therapy and going back on anti-depressant medication so she can be a better parent to Martin. Rebecca takes Martin to stay at her apartment.

Rebecca encounters the shadow creature during the night. The next day, Emma from Child Services removes Martin from Rebecca’s custody and returns him to Sophie.

Rebecca notices that the shadow creature carved the name ‘Diana’ into her floor. Rebecca flashes back to a similar encounter as a child with the shadow entity, now known to be Diana.

Looking for answers regarding Diana’s identity, Rebecca and Bret explore Sophie’s house. Rebecca retrieves medical files and photos collected by Paul, who was researching his wife’s condition before his death. Diana warns Rebecca to stay away and briefly attacks from a shadow until Bret intervenes.

Sophie tries to convince Martin that Diana is her friend. Frightened of the darkness in their home, Martin hurriedly turns on lights as Diana attacks. Sophie desperately pleads with Diana to spare Martin because he doesn’t understand.

Martin flees to his sister’s apartment. Having reviewed Paul’s research, Rebecca explains Diana’s history to her brother.

At 13-years-old, Diana Walter was discovered locked in a basement. Her father had committed suicide. Stories claimed Diana had an ability to get inside people’s heads and change them. Suffering from a rare skin disorder that gave her extreme sensitivity to light, Diana was committed to the Mulberry Hill Psychiatric Hospital in California where young Sophie was being treated for chronic depression. Diana had an abusive attachment to Sophie, violently attacking her on multiple occasions, but she was able to convince Sophie that they were friends. Doctors attempted to cure Diana’s illness with an experimental light therapy that inadvertently disintegrated her. However, Diana somehow bonded with Sophie and is now able to reappear whenever Sophie is deepest in her depression.

Rebecca theorizes that Sophie is Diana’s only connection to the physical world. If Sophie’s mental state improves, that bond can be broken. Martin points out that this is what Paul was attempting to do and Diana killed him. Diana suddenly attacks Martin from under the bed and Rebecca rescues him.

Rebecca goes to her mother’s house with Martin and Bret to confront Sophie about Diana. Sophie locks herself in her bedroom after insisting that Diana is real and not a ghost. When Rebecca goes to speak to her mother later, Sophie passes her a crumpled note that reads, “I need help.”

The lights go out inside and outside of the house. Diana locks Rebecca and Martin in the basement and attacks Bret, who flees outside and escapes Diana by turning on his car’s headlights.

Sophie angrily confronts Diana about harming her children. Sophie goes to take her medication and Diana knocks her unconscious.

Using a black light, Rebecca finds a message scrawled on a wall indicating that Diana killed her father, Sophie’s first husband whom Sophie claimed abandoned them to spare Rebecca the truth.

LAPD officers Brian Andrews and Gomez arrive at the house and free the siblings. Diana kills Officer Andrews. As Officer Gomez looks for Diana, Rebecca sends her brother outside with Bret while she searches inside for Sophie.

Diana attacks Rebecca. Having regained consciousness, Sophie confronts Diana at gunpoint. Proclaiming, “there is no you without me,” Sophie kills herself and Diana disintegrates. Rebecca reunites with Bret and Martin in an ambulance outside as authorities arrive on the scene.

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Review:

Sophie hasn’t been the same since the horrible death of her husband Paul, though she wasn’t exactly behaving normally before then either.  Debilitated by depression since childhood, Sophie still speaks to a strange shape in the shadows named Diana, a figure she insists is real even though everyone else assumes it is one more manifestation of her ongoing emotional turmoil.

Sophie’s adult daughter Rebecca sought solace from her mother’s psychological troubles by moving out many years ago.  Little stepbrother Martin doesn’t have that option.  So when Martin complains to big sis that the darkness in mom’s house seemingly wants to kill him, protective instincts kick in with Rebecca wondering if Diana might be more than a mere invention of imagination after all.

Indeed, that is exactly what the young woman discovers as she digs deeper into her mother’s troubled history with the eerie entity.  Martin was right to be terrified.  Diana shares a bizarre bond with Sophie and anyone who tries breaking it suffers the shadow’s wrath, should they ever be unfortunate enough to find themselves surrounded by darkness.

Good news for horror film fans afraid of the dark.  “Lights Out” is loaded with enough dying flashlight beams, flickering bulbs, and tiptoeing into blurred blackness to ensure a trip to work, school, or wherever the next morning with red eyes of insomnia certain that every shadow hides a threat bent on murder.

The movie is a bursting bonanza of jumps and gotchas charging hard with every bit of a boo to be mustered.  It’s unabashedly artificial, yet works oh-so-well to both charm and chill anyone open to the Friday night frights of a movie engineered entirely for pure popcorn matinee thrills.  Those chomping for more creativity behind the supernatural spookshow on the other hand, will find the film falling short on the satisfaction scale.

Bearing in mind that “Lights Out” is based on tissue-thin source material, it’s almost a wonder it has a story at all.  Swedish director David F. Sandberg’s 2013 film of the same name is a two-and-a-half-minute short about a woman repeatedly flipping a light switch into increasingly alarming pop scares.  Regardless of how well he capitalized on creating compelling characterizations or fleshed out fiction that didn’t exist in the first place, that screenwriter Eric Heisserer turned an over-and-done-with setup of such simplicity into a full-blown script complete with thematic subtext is an ovation-deserving achievement in its own right.

Sandberg’s original short was wildly popular worldwide, though I personally failed to see where opportunity was inherent for a feature-length adaptation.  Heisserer’s story of a shadow creature tied to one woman’s mental illness ably covers the bases for context to that content.  Effective performances tuned with precise pinches of emotion from Maria Bello as Sophie and moxie from Teresa Palmer as Rebecca move momentum the remainder of the way at a brisk clip.  Snappy pacing sufficiently complements sharp staging and cinematography to keep fear fires stoked before too much convention can snuff out the flame.

There’s certainly no call to campaign for the movie’s induction into any Horror Hall of Fame.  “Lights Out” is chuffed by cheapness in its plentiful conveniences, Paul’s positioning in a textiles factory where creepy mannequins are commonplace in the hallways being one obvious example, yet overall intentions to entertain routinely trump traditional tropes.

Get into the swing of its spirit and there is old-fashioned fun to be had with “Lights Out.”  Your stomach might rumble from rapid digestion of its relative depth, though the taste left on the tongue remains sweet with the flavor of a well-shot and well-produced thriller worth a one-time spin around its boogeywoman’s block.

Review Score:  65

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