This week we saw the scary movie, Lights Out, a film that made its entire product budget costs on its opening day.
It is a concept we liked the idea of, a ghostly figure appears whenever the lights are turned out. It made us think of the effective episode of
It made us think of the effective episode of Doctor Who, ‘Blink’ which has a similar concept, in that the figure moves closer when you blink.
The film, much like another hit, Oculus, first found success as a short film, before being expanded into a feature length film.
We were also reminded of The Babadook due to the central relationships of the main characters, in particular, that of the mother and her son.
The film starts on Paul (Billy Burke), working late in a warehouse. When the lights go out, he is brutally attacked by a ghostly figure.
We soon learn the ghostly figure is attached to Sophie, (Maria Bello) the wife of Paul. The ghostly figure is Diana, who had grown up with Sophie in a home and they became very close friends.
Diana has been diagnosed with a rare illness which causes her to be highly sensitive to light.
When the doctors try to cure Diana, it has devastating results which basically cause her to die. However, her spirit is now released, which can be seen whenever the lights are out!
Diana has remained with Sophie, but we learn that she doesn’t want to share her with anyone else. Diana has resulted in the death of Sophie’s first husband, but this has never been proved.
This death has caused problems with Sophie and her daughter Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) who growing up was affected by seeing Diana and no one believing in her. She also has not been able to come to terms with the mysterious disappearance of her father.
Their relationship is now almost non-existent, following Sophie remarrying Paul, who we saw earlier in the film.
Rebecca who now lives on her own, and is having trouble letting anyone in, does have a relationship with Bret, (Alexander DiPersia) who is understanding and hopes she can commit one day. Hoping to one day leave a sock in a drawer!
When Rebecca’s younger brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) starts seeing Diana, she will do anything to stop him going down the same path she did.
What follows is a great film with plenty of scares, you really will want to consider leaving the lights on, as Rebecca, Martin and Bret are put in various situations where they are faced with Diana.
The film cleverly uses various light sources such as phone screens to ward off Diana and with an 81 minute run time, never outstays it welcome, yet does give us interesting characters, all played well by the case, especially Palmer in the lead.
The ending also is very good for a film of this genre, as it is not left widely open for a sequel, however, with the huge amount of money the film has taken at the box office, one has already been greenlit.
Although the film’s creator and director David F. Sandberg, will next be bringing us Annabelle 2 so we will have to wait a while for it.
It is also great to know films like this have done well at the box office, as we feel we want more scares from our films like this, rather the torture porn of recent hits like Hostel.
Did you enjoy Lights out? What has been your favourite horror/scary movie of recent years?
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