Lights Out is like getting a nicely wrapped box of
chocolates and discovering when you open it, all you have is empty wrappers.
Its Freddy Kruger meets Darkness Falls with a touch of the Babadook thrown in
and no wonder, the writer was the scribe of the remake of Nightmare On Elm
Street.
Based on Sandberg’s 2 1/2 minute short film that went viral,
producers decided to turn it into a feature film.
After a promising, pre-credits sequence that infuses a few
scares, the film focuses on Martin (Bateman) who sees a “boogeyman” creature
that lives in the shadows in his house his mother, Sophie (Bello) converses
with.
Enter avante guard artist, Rebecca (Palmer) and her
somewhat, boyfriend, Bret (DiPersia) where the creature known as Diana carves
her name on Rebecca’s wooden floor adding to the mystery.
Coming to the aid of Martin, Rebecca discovers that Diana
and her mother where at a mental hospital for assorted disorders as young
girls. Rebecca for depression and Diana, (who was living in a basement and
abandoned at 13 as her father mysteriously committed suicide.) for an abnormal
skin disease that reacts to light who also has pyschic powers.
Treatment for Diana using bright spectrum lights causes her
to spontaneously combust, but not before getting into Sophie’s head creating a
psychic connection where Diana can manifest through her in the darkness
creating havoc.
Why Diana waited so long to seek out her revenge and for
what purpose mystifies the audience.
As the story progresses, its filled with cookie cutter,
by-the-book, cheap scares that we’ve all seen before.
Welcome to the emperor’s new clothes as Sandberg’s
impressive short and the feature film trailer are better than the movie itself.
Predictable in all accounts, this movie would have been
better off entitled, Darkness Falls 2.
LIGHTS OUT / DIRECTOR: DAVID F. SANDBERG / SCREENPLAY: ERIC HEISSERER / STARRING: TERESA PALMER, GABRIEL BATEMAN, MARIA BELLO, ALEXANDER DIPERSIA / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 19TH
