Lights Out (2016) - Sandberg debuts with effective spook story

♥♥♥♥

 

The curiosity-sparking, simple poster for David F. Sandberg's Lights Out

 

Lights Out is the feature debut of David F. Sandberg (Closet Space (2016), short), based on his own same-titled 2013 short and written by Eric Heisserer (The Thing (2011)).

Following the violent, mysterious death of his father, little Martin reaches out to his big sister, who lives alone in the city. Their mother is depressed and mentally unstable, talking to a woman in the house, who died decades ago, and who can only be in the dark.

Lights Out is an old-school spook story or a campfire story, sure to upset especially its younger audiences' night's sleep. It's got an effective gimmick at its heart; a maleficent entity that only moves in the dark. The film gets a lot out of this premise and couples it with a story of mental illness and an incredible skin disease.

Maria Bello (Grown Ups (2010)) is very credible as the mentally unhinged mother, and Gabriel Bateman (Annabelle (2014)) plays the brave boy Martin very well. None of the others are anything less than good, although the bigger sister, essentially the film's protagonist, and her relationship with her long-haired, slightly dopey boyfriend wasn't all that hot. I also wouldn't have minded a little fun in Lights Out, but that isn't part of its game.

Instead it succeeds in being a creepy, very simple horror with some good shocks and effective sound design. Don't expect a gore fest here. Lights Out is not that type of horror.

Watch an official trailer for the film here

Cost: 4.9-5 mil. $

Box office: 110.9 mil. $ and counting

= Mega-hit

[Lights Out premiered June 8 (Los Angeles Film Festival) and runs 81 minutes. Sandberg had not worked with a film crew or been on a film set before directing the film. Filming took place in LA from June - August 2015. The premiere was arranged to benefit from the major success of one of its producers, James Wan's The Conjuring 2's release around the same time. The film opened #3, behind new release Star Trek Beyond and holdover hit The Secret Lives of Pets, to a 21.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd week and to date has grossed 64.5 mil. $ (58.2 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets have been Russia with 3.7 mil. $ (3.3 %) and Argentina with 2.4 mil. $ (2.2 %). A sequel with Heisserer and Sandberg back as writer and director, respectively, has already been announced. Lights Out is certified fresh at 76 % with a 6.3 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Lights Out?