Review of Lights Out (2016) by Markus P — 16 Aug 2016

First things first: go check out the short film of the same name that this is based on. It's on YouTube. Go ahead, I'll wait.

The concept works great as a short but I'm not convinced that this succeeded very well as a feature length film. It stuck the landing but it's a bit wobbly for my taste. There a whole bunch of tricks though to keep that "it only moves in darkness" thing going and mega bonus points for the throwaway boyfriend character not being a throwaway character at all and giving some badly needed outside perspective to this family's issues.

Maria Bello also does well as the troubled, depressed, mother. Have to give her props here as well.

Usually the less said about a villain in a horror film the better but you're given either too much or not enough depending on what way frustrates you the most. I was on the not enough side and came to the conclusion that they spoke too much about it. There's a lot of backstory given but not a real explanation or anything, which I understand is probably for the best but the logic of "only moves in darkness" isn't always followed so that doesn't help.

The story is a good one though, which is a lot more than can be said for some horror films.