Lights Out

Turns out I actually missed quite a few horror films in 2016. And for that, I am sorry.

But if I am being truly honest, do I really need to see any of those ones after already seeing The Witch and The Conjuring 2? Yeah, probably not.

Lights Out is the last movie I missed thanks to going on vacation over the summer for a bit and one I only slightly even wanted to see. I had Don’t Breathe coming up and wasn’t sure if I would need any other sort of horror film around that time. (And of course I basically skipped all of the October ones).

But hey, I had 80 minutes to spare. A short film so even if it was terrible, at least I wouldn’t waste my whole day on it.

The worst films sometimes do feel like they take all day though.

The beginning of the film takes place in a theater or movie studio. I don’t know. But Paul (Billy Burke) is working there late, and next thing he knows, there is some shadowy figure in the dark trying to kill him, and it successfully does!

Paul left behind a wife, Sophie (Maria Bello), and a young son, Martin (Gabriel Bateman). After Martin is having problems at school, mostly staying awake, his older half sister is called, Rebecca (Teresa Palmer). Paul was not her dad, her own dad was killed when she was younger and she used to have problems as well.

And honestly, really quickly do we find out that this entity has a name. Diana (Alicia Vela-Bailey), something that Rebecca saw for some time as a kid and now it appears to be haunting Martin AND her again. There is a story behind all of this, and how Diana came to be, but it is too dumb to even want to spoil it.

Also featuring Alexander DiPersia as Rebecca’s serious boy friend.

Look into my eye dots and learn to fall in love.

From its onset, Lights Out isn’t a bad idea. But in the way they told the story, it definitely seems like something that would have been much better as a short, and not a full length film. Despite its small run time, it seems to go on too long. They put a lot of effort into it to tell us why it is all happening, backstory and all, but the plot points there are just so unexciting.

The other main issue with this film is that it ends up not being scary. Maybe by making Diana an entity named Diana? A real thing? Yeah, that is probably it. Although none of Diana’s powers really make too much sense either, despite the elaborate time spent on her backstory.

This film surprisingly features a couple of well known women in the roles and given the quality of the film, it isn’t too surprising to find them not giving their best performances. All of the men are almost laughable in their acting skills, but I find myself practically disappointed in the women because I know they have been in better.

Lights Out is a forgettable horror film that will thankfully have no sequels. IT WILL HAVE NO SEQUELS, I SAY! It didn’t even end with some shitty teaser that the Diana is still alive, it just ended like a normal film, thankfully.