Lights Out Review
The horror genre is different things to different people. It’s usually one of two things: another genre that generates a lot of enthusiasm and excitement or a disgusting third-cousin of the film world that is frowned upon. For me, I once was in the latter, but after discovering the classics, the 50’s B-Movie Monster Mashes, and the 80’s slasher flicks, I found that the genre has a lot to offer. Lights Out offers a lot of scares, a good story, and some great characters. But it doesn’t stop there. It is genuinely one of the most entertaining horror flicks of recent years, and hell, one of the best horror films in years while I’m at it. I’ll get into why it should be touted as such in just a moment.
The film is based on a short film that caught a lot of popularity on YouTube about a woman who sees a silhouetted figure while the lights are out, but when the lights are on, it disappears. She hides from it and tapes her light switch so it will stay on, which is a great image that stuck with me. I was really excited to see the marketing team chose that image for the main movie poster. The feature film has an opening scene which is pretty similar, but as the movie begins, we see that the film has more in store than being an 80 minute adaptation of a 2 minute short. There’s an actual story with actual characters here. The film not only has the jump scares and horror back-story that makes the horror fans cheer, it is also a family drama.
For me, the best horror films within the possession or ghost story sub-genres are the ones that show not only the damage the ghost or demon or whatever is doing to the main characters physically, but also emotionally. The best example, of course, is The Exorcist (1973), which some horror fans are disappointed by when first watching because it isn’t just wall-to-wall possession scares. No, it spends most of its time showing the catastrophic side-effects that an event like this would cause to a mother, a family, a friend. Lights Out has a more even-split than Exorcist does when it comes to this aspect, but it is a shorter film so we have less time to spend on the personal story.
Then there’s an aspect that I love in horror movies: the opening scene does not explain anything. It doesn’t show how the silhouette formed or anything like that. No, we jump right in and see it attack people. Like It Follows (2015) or a classic example of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) we see the killer in action and see why we should fear him or her. Like those other two films, I got a sense of excitement watching the opening scene knowing there would be an explanation later and that upon the second watch I could more easily piece together why and how the first scene was happening. Of course one bonus that any good film can offer is having a good cast with some nice performances, and Lights Out delivers. Maria Bello knows how to nail her crazy mother character, and Teresa Palmer makes for a great heroine. Once again it is the personal story that makes the film stand out. Basically the ghost silhouette figure is haunting the youngest in the family and it’s up to his older sister to protect him as the mother isn’t qualified. We figure out why later, and again I was really anticipating what the explanation would be.
Of course I understand that horror movies aren’t for everybody, and while I personally didn’t get too freaked out watching the film, there is a fair amount of child endangerment here and there that could freak out some people and of course there are some jump scares that could make you jump right out of your seat. Other than those more or less standard horror movie warnings, I can’t think of too many people who won’t get involved with this story, won’t get caught up in the characters, and who wouldn’t enjoy the entertaining factors of the heroes overcoming the villain. After all, that’s probably the most important factor in making a horror movie a cut above the rest: making the characters people you actually care about and you want to see them succeed. Sure, there’s exceptions to every rule, and I think the best examples are some of those 70’s and 80’s slasher films where I don’t really care about the teenagers who only have sex on the mind, or have fried it with drugs, and I can just enjoy the brutality of a Jason Voorhees or a Freddy Kruger. Lights Out is above all that. Sure, the villain is a good one that will probably be remembered more than other recent horror movie villains, but the heroes are characters that I will be thinking about just as much.
My rating: 10/10.
Agreed with the overall thoughts on the movie, it was actually pretty great. And man do horror movies have an unfair reputation among people. You either love ’em or hate ’em it seems.