Lights Out a fun frightshow

click to enlarge

In order for a horror film to work, it’s required that at certain points, its characters act … without thinking? I don’t want to use the word “stupid,” as I surely don’t know how I would behave if a horde of flesh-eating zombies were bearing down on me and I realize I just happened to forget to load my shotgun. Being under constant pressure causes us to do, well, stupid things.

There’s no getting around the fact that the characters in David Sandberg’s Lights Out do stupid things, a lot of them actually. And yet this taut little thriller proves effective for the most part, one of the reasons being that it encourages us to say to the screen, “Don’t go in there without a light, dummy!” Keep in mind that this and other pieces of smart advice are very easy to deliver while sitting in the monster-free setting of a movie theater.

Sandberg’s premise, which he first introduced in a 2013 short film, is rather silly yet is tailor-made for the screen. Seems poor young Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is being haunted by visions of something horrible in his house which he now occupies with his widowed mother (Maria Bello) after his father (Billy Burke) was mysteriously and brutally murdered. Turns out it’s not the boy’s imagination as his half-sister Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) had seen this creature – a haggard, quick, razor-fingered creature desperately in need of a spa day – herself years earlier. The thing is, others have a hard time believing Martin and Rebecca because you can only see this thing when it’s dark. Lights on, it’s not there. Lights out … run for cover.

As you can imagine, this setup lends itself to many tense and at times effective moments in which Sandberg toys with the audience. Bright rooms are suddenly plagued by flickering lights, a neighborhood blackout hits at just the wrong moment and the only flashlight our heroine can get her hands on isn’t battery powered but operates by generating energy with a hand crank on its side. Of course, all of these situations give rise to dark rooms so the creature can run amok and do what it does. This gives Sandberg the opportunity to create a great deal of suspense, most of it done to great effect, for as the requisite rings of light slowly shrink, we know that bad things are in the offing.

The director is fully aware of the ridiculous nature of his premise and is not above playing it for laughs in a sequence involving Rebecca’s boyfriend (Alexander DiPersia), whose timing with a common item we all have proves impeccable. Everyone is in on the joke but that doesn’t prevent the cast from fully investing in the film and their characters, as when the scares are played straight, their fear is palpable.

The origin of the monster is inspired, though if Sandberg and his screenwriter Eric Heisserer had spent more time fleshing this concept a bit more, they would have had a deeper and more meaningful film on their hands, something akin to 2014’s excellent The Babadook. (That being said, they should be ashamed of using a very conveniently found, heavy-handed audio recording to provide the monster’s history.) However, credit should be given for how tight and compact the filmmaker keeps things, as the movie runs a taut 80 minutes, leaving the viewer little time to catch their breath or ask too many questions.

How much you end up enjoying Lights Out will depend on how nitpicky you feel while watching it. Sure, you could point out that the creature moves a couple of times when the lights are on, that the characters should know never to leave each other alone and that they should be smart enough to outfit themselves with brand new flashlights with fresh batteries. But really, what would be the fun in that?

Contact Chuck Koplinski at [email protected].