Review of Lights Out (2016) by Truongson H — 04 Aug 2016

Teresa Palmer performed better than I anticipated, given that her performance in the Point Break remake didn't suggest that she was ready to carry her own film. Mario Bello and the little kid also acted well.

The familial relationships were conveyed genuinely. But although the movie does a lot with a simple concept, it missed several opportunities and relied mostly on jump scares. The Woman in Black was better at using murky, blurry shadows to create tension.

Lights Out should've experimented more with different types of fear related to darkness, such as (1) movement of indistinct shapes not just human silhouettes, (2) inability of the eye to adapt to the low light (trying to focus on a shape for a tense, long time but not being able to make it out), (3) the natural tendency to anthropomorphize harmless shapes, (4) definitely should've used sounds more to underscore the frustration of being unable to see what's going on (Woman in Black was good at that too).

The movie should've also used Maria Bello's talent to mislead the audience into fearing that this was actually the work of a psychotic breakdown rather than a ghost. The movie couldve played with that misdirection for a good while and relied on a different set of fears/scares.

The discovery of the psych history could've been the peak of that build up before later slowly realizing it's something supernatural. The flaw of introducing the police in the final act is that it clues the audience into the fact that the main characters will likely live (by process of elimination), since the officers were clearly introduced to die.