Lights Out's brisk running time allows the film to avoid wearing out its welcome too, as its low-budget aesthetic and approach to crafting spooky scenarios might've become strained had they needed to sustain a longer running time.įrom a directorial perspective, Sandberg does a solid job with his first time as a feature-length helmsman, but there's room for improvement - as illustrated by Lights Out's somewhat uneven approach to sequencing and occasionally stilted performances. While the film doesn't explore the idea of a supernatural villain whose only weakness is the light and who can be anywhere at any time through a wide variety of scenarios (nor does the monster always bide by a consistent set of "rules"), the concept allows Lights Out to maintain a sense of suspense throughout - as moviegoers are always being kept aware that there's a danger lurking around the corner, during any scene not set under the cover of broad daylight. Sandberg has all of Wan’s gifts for engineering thrills and chills, but his sense of humor and feeling for the human subtext of the fright film might be what saves him from being a one-hit wonder.Fortunately, like The Shallows, Lights Out succeeds at its other main goal: to deliver scares, thrills, and jolts as quickly and efficiently as possible. It amounts to a semi-visible slapstick routine. Yes, it’s terrifying, but it’s also funny: In one standout scene, Rebecca’s hapless boyfriend is chased from the house to the driveway, repeatedly saving himself just in time with a series of light-emitting gadgets, from his cell phone to his car’s headlights. ![]() As in the short, the ghost disappears in the light and reappears in the dark, and Sandberg uses this simple trick in a number of clever ways. Lights Out truly shines in the staging of its scare sequences. But the supernatural custody battle between Rebecca and Sophie over Martin is handled with more realism and sensitivity than is typically found in boilerplate horror. The story of her relationship with the ghost, told in an obligatory archival-research montage, veers into high camp. The hauntings intensify when Sophie feels abandoned, whether by her children’s absent fathers or her children themselves. Sophie spends her nights talking to shadows, which conceal the movie’s real star, a spectral crone with stringy hair and clicking fingernails who wants Sophie all to herself. Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) is drawn back to her family home because her unstable mother, Sophie (Maria Bello), appears to be terrorizing Rebecca’s much younger half-brother, Martin (Gabriel Bateman). Taking a page out of the Freudian playbook, Sandberg and screenwriter Eric Heisserer fleshed out the short’s minimal premise into a story of a broken family haunted by the fear of abandonment. The unconscious purpose of this repetitive play, Freud said, was to gain a sense of control over the trauma of his single mother’s frequent absences. One thinks of the childhood game analyzed by Sigmund Freud, in which his grandson alternately hides and reveals a toy from behind the furniture. It’s a minor masterpiece of horror filmmaking reduced to its cinematic essence. Off: there again, a little closer this time. Switching the lights back on makes her disappear. From the other end of a dark hallway, she makes out the silhouette of a hunched woman by her closet. Alone in an apartment, Losten switches off the lights on her way to bed. ![]() If you haven’t seen the 2013 short, I suggest avoiding it if you’re easily scared. ![]() While it’s no The Babadook, Lights Out is an efficient haunted-house thriller, as witty and charming as it is spooky. Wan was impressed enough to help Sandberg develop his dialogue-free short into a major studio film, and New Line Cinema’s faith was justified. After Sandberg put a no-budget short starring his wife, Lotta Losten, on YouTube, it went viral, attracting the attention of horror maven James Wan ( Saw, The Conjuring). Sandberg, is the stuff of indie auteur fantasy. The story behind Lights Out, the surprisingly effective first feature film by David F.
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