Lights Out

Sleep with the lights on much? You might have to after seeing this one.

Based on the short film of the same name, Lights Out follows Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) as she comes back into the lives of her little brother, Martin (Gabriel Bateman), and their mentally unstable mother, Sophie (Maria Bello), after a long self-imposed absence. Accompanied by her boy toy (but hopeful boyfriend), Bret (Alexander DiPersia), Rebecca re-enters her family’s lives only to find out that something, or someone, has been very literally stalking them from the shadows. No one can explain what happens when the lights go out, but when they do, the shadowy entity that lives within them relentlessly terrifies anyone who is unfortunate enough to lay eyes on it. Now Rebecca must fight to save her brother from its clutches and stop her mother from falling into insanity before the entity takes hold of them all and drags them into the darkness, kicking and screaming.

Being a PG-13 horror flick is usually a death sentence for a film like this. Either the rating holds the film back from doing anything remotely scary outside of jump scares and cheap “it was a cat making the noise” scenes, or it keeps horror fans away right off the bat before they can take the film seriously. My point is that not many PG-13 horror films can stand on their own (save for the Insidious franchise maybe), and since they really can’t rely on gore or disturbing violence to give people the chills, they have to rely on clever scares that build tension and fright, and luckily Lights Out fits that bill perfectly.

Whether it be the inventive cinematography, the downright frightening “monster” design (those red eyes though!), or the general sense of dread that underscores almost every scene, Lights Out succeeds because it takes the time to build each scene in order to really get under your skin and make you over-think when and where the scares are coming from. I consistently found myself tensing up, knowing full well how a “regular” horror film would tackle any given scene, yet I couldn’t relax because for the most part, every time I thought one thing would happen, something else did, and in a much different way than I’ve seen before. While the “lights on, lights off” scare tactic starts to wear thin by the third act (like almost everything else), the filmmakers tweak this successful formula just enough to make everything feel relatively fresh and new throughout. By the time Rebecca gets what’s essentially a black light sword towards the end of the film, the scares have settled down to what I would have originally expected from a movie like this, but with the script riding so high for the first three quarters of the film, this slight dip in quality can easily be overlooked.

Being a film called Lights Out, one would expect the scariest parts to happen when darkness permeates the scene, and you’d be 100% right in your assumption (surprise!). Due to the inherent “powers” of the entity at the heart of the story (it only appears when the lights are off, duh!), the filmmakers had a field day with some great lighting that not only acts as a fun visual for audiences, but falls more in line with being a full fledged plot element and character unto itself. There’s a scene about halfway through the film that sees Rebecca sleeping in her apartment while a neon sign outside of her window blinks ominous red light on and off every few seconds. I won’t spoil it, but the combination of lighting, slow burn tension, acting and sound design all combine to make one of my favorite scenes of the film, if not of any horror film in general. Everything here is just so right for the movie and for what the filmmakers are trying to accomplish that I almost wanted to applaud after the scene was over. There’s a bunch of scenes like this sprinkled throughout the film that surprised more than anything, so know going in that at one point or another you’re going to be on the edge of your seat; it’s just how it’s gonna be.

On another technical front, it’d be careless of me if I didn’t touch on the sound mixing of the film as well. I usually don’t notice these parts of films since half the time there’s wall-to-wall noise being thrown at you from the second the opening titles hit, but Lights Out effectively uses sound almost as much as lighting to help sell scares and give the film an added edge. In the same scene mentioned above, there’s an eerie scratching noise just before Rebecca notices the entity in her room. It starts off as a slight scratching that builds behind you to a point where, and I swear to everything that’s holy, I got a little pissed thinking that someone in the audience behind me was doing something weird to the seat in front of them. The scratching got louder and came from so far back in the theater behind me that I was honestly fooled for a few seconds before I realized what that scratching meant. Needless to say I was impressed, and again I applaud the filmmakers for pulling one over on me.

Other than that, the acting is surprisingly strong throughout, really only hitting a few low points when the script wasn’t up to snuff, but overall I was impressed, more so because we all know the type of acting we usually get in this genre. Everyone, including the child actor, has their fair share of screen time and even though this film is short and sweet at less than an hour and a half, I honestly wouldn’t have minded a few more scenes with some extra character work to round everything out. Either way I’m still impressed with what was given here.

The only aspects of the film I really didn’t like were the afore mentioned weak script sections, particularly involving almost anything relating to the fleshing out of the entity’s back-story (it’s nothing special), to the misfire of a third act. Again, the film could have used another ten minutes at least, if not to punch up a few scenes but to try and fix some of the more cliché horror elements and weak and lazy scripting the third act dredges up. It’s by no means a deal breaker, and I should probably dock the film a bit score-wise, but I enjoyed so damn much of what was going on that it honestly didn’t ruin anything for me. Just know that the film does slightly devolve into a rushed, cookie cutter type of horror film towards the end, but makes up for it everywhere else.

A truly suspenseful and clever take on what could have been just another forgettable horror flick, Lights Out is way better than I could have hoped for even with the third act threatening to derail everything that came before. It’s an effective, tension filled ride that takes the age-old fear of the dark and kicks it up a notch. Through the use of some visually inventive and surprisingly creative cinematography as well as some awesome sound mixing, Lights Out is well worth the watch for horror fans and regular movie goers alike, even if the PG-13 rating might turn off a few. Do yourself a favor and check this one out, and remember, don’t forget to put the lights out!!!