Lights Out (2016)

2016
Directed by David F. Sandberg
Starring Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Alexander DiPersia, Billy Burke and Maria Bello

I've reviewed plenty of James Wan movies before, so you know the drill - he's the guy that introduced/unleashed Paranormal Activity on the world and has done a whole lot of ghost movies since.  That should about do it for the background information.

Which brings me to Lights Out.  Produced by Wan and with a screenplay by Eric Heisserer - a pretty prolific writer in the genre for the past few years all things considered - this is a somewhat different twist on the usual Wansploitation material.  There's a ghost, yeah, but it's no demon.  And there's no hidden cameras to be found, but I actually think horror has fully moved on from that particular subgenre, so huzzah for that.  Nope, what we get from this flick is a straight-up ghost movie that is very light on running time at 81 minutes and also a little light on scares, but we'll get to that in due time.  Fortunately, it's a got a few saving graces up its sleeve, so it's worth your time to track it down at the Redbox or download it on Amazon Prime or whatever the cool kids do these days.  So ends my laziest, shortest introduction in quite some time.  I'm very proud of myself, and hopefully you are.

The flick opens up with a prologue kill involving a textfile factory, a shadowy apparition, and the classic instance of the "dude who doesn't believe what's going on only to get tragically offed" come to life.  The twist that gives us the rest of our plot: said shadowy figure appears when the lights are out (what a clever title).  From here we meet our star character of the movie - Rebecca, the stepdaughter of the man who was just killed, played by Teresa Palmer. 

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the Skeevy Paragraph.  Longtime readers (you know, the ones that exist only in my own mind) are well aware of my love for the Ju-On/Grudge franchise.  The American Grudge 2 is a truly underrated gem in my book, in no small part due to the unreal quintology of hotties: Amber Tamblyn, Sarah Roemer, Misako Uno, Arielle Kebbel and...Palmer.  In that flick, she was the resident "bitchy blonde girl" who tormented the shy, sweet Kebbel, and her hotness has not diminished in that time.  I'm not going to list her entire filmography, but suffice to say she's stolen the show in her fair share of fairly crappy movies.  Fortunately, this isn't exactly a crappy movie that we're dealing with here, but she's still the best thing about Lights Out.

Well, the plot isn't going to unspool itself.  Looking back at it, this was actually a VERY lean and mean movie.  In addition to the aforementioned short running time, there's really only four characters in it of any substance.  Rebecca - that would be Teresa Palmer for those who remembered before I went back into full-fledged skeeve mode - is the daughter of the dude who bit it during the prologue kill.  She has a mother, Sophie, played by the always awesome Maria Bello, and said mother has been afflicted with mental disorders ever since the tragic death of Rebecca's real father.  There's also the little brother Martin played by Gabriel Bateman, and the boyfriend, Bret, played by Alexander DiPersia.  Any movie with a cast this small needs the roles to be nailed, and fortunately this movie has this quality.  I'm not talking Academy Award good or anything, but the supporting actors from Bello on down don't mail it in, which is more than you can say for some movies like this.

Caution, ahead be spoilers.  Soon enough, little brother Martin begins seeing the same mysterious figure, and he and Rebecca have a few close scrapes with death.  Gradually, the back story is given to us that the ghost is "Diana," a former friend of the Sophie's who had a horrific skin condition that made her terribly sensitive to light.  Cue sequence that shows her being roasted alive in a rather unscrupulous experiment, and that's why she's your star villain.  Now, maybe I'm just an idiot, but her EXACT motivation for killing off Sophie's family was a little unclear to me; supposedly, she's back to make sure that no one else "takes" Sophie, presumably back to an asylum, but I fail to see how her son and daughter have anything to do with this.  Who knows, I probably missed something and one of this here blog's nine subscribers can rightly call me out on it.

As I mentioned previously, this movie ain't scary.  Really, not at all.  It's got its fair share of BOO scares and a whole bunch of creepy shots of the "Diana" ghost skulking around in backgrounds that are meant to evoke a paltry sense of dread in the audience, but I was able to hit the sack immediately afterward with no problem at all.  I also think that the script doesn't follow its setup very carefully, which is kind of a theme with screenwriter Heisserer.  This guy also penned the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, the movie where we were told that the character would start having "micro naps" as their forced fast from sleep progressed, thus making it possible for Freddy to cut their asses up at a moment's notice.  Except for when it was convenient for the script to forget this for other stuff.  This movie also kinda does the same thing with its "the ghost can only attack in the dark" rule.  I'm not going to get into specifics because I don't want to bore readers to tears, but trust me...it's more than just a nitpick.  It's there.

Fortunately, what this movie DOES have going for it is the emotional investment factor.  Rebecca, Sophie and Martin are a pretty likable and engaging little familial unit, all things considered, with Palmer and Bello really digging into these roles with every ounce of the scale wage that they were no doubt paid on this $4.9 million-budgeted film.  Amazingly enough, the boyfriend also manages to not be too big of a douche, a welcome change of pace after last week's film, Don't Breathe. 

The movie has a pretty damn exciting final 15 minutes.  Not scary, but exciting.  And it even ENDS, definitively, with no final BOO scare and no setup for a sequel that is almost certain to happen anyway being that this film grossed the equivalent of a WWE fiscal quarter on its miniscule budget.  So, if I'm going to sum up this admittedly craptacular review, I guess I just have to say that it's not scary, but it's certainly a fun watch.  In an era of TV-dominated pop culture where every single show on the tube seems to revolve around post-traumatic stress - the worse the better - a nice, fun little horror flick is definitely a welcome change. 

Alright, rating time.  Let's give Lights Out *** out of ****.  It definitely won't leave you pissing yourself in terror or anything, but it's a damn entertaining movie that manages to feel quite a bit different from the usual James Wan story.  It even reminds me of the early 2000s wave of Japan-style thrillers on occasion, and there's definitely worse charges that can be leveled.  Give it a shot.