Official Synopsis
When Rebecca left home, she thought she left her childhood fears behind. Growing up, she was never really sure of what was and wasn’t real when the lights went out…and now her little brother, Martin, is experiencing the same unexplained and terrifying events that had once tested her sanity and threatened her safety. A frightening entity with a mysterious attachment to their mother, Sophie, has reemerged. But this time, as Rebecca gets closer to unlocking the truth, there is no denying that all their lives are in danger…once the lights go out.
This is the first horror movie I have seen where the visuals work better than the story. Usually failure goes hand-in-hand with both pieces of a horror film. There are times where the visuals are bad, which means that the story is generally bad. An example? Stephen King’s remake of The Shining (the mini-series — 1997). The visuals were on a television budget and the story was by the book, which contains too much exposition.
Then there are times where the story is good and it’s driven by the visuals. An example? American Werewolf in London, where the story was creepy/funny, as were the terrifying visuals for that time period.
So it’s a rarity, at least in my limited horror experience, where you get an even split, and honestly, thank God for that because if both sides of the coin were bad, then I’m not sure Lights Out would have made $148 million in the box office on a $4.5 million dollar budget (good times). Director David F. Sandberg made sure that the visual creepiness and horror gimmick of his main antagonist, Diana, was in the forefront driving the film, thus making us forget that the story had issues.
Opening done, let’s get right to the beef of the story.
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The first part of the film starts off with the quick death of father/businessman, Paul (Billy Burke), at his job by a being named Diana, who is living in the darkness and hunting him down for reasons unknown. The visuals at this point tell the story and actually explain how Diana works and what her limitations are, though they don’t give away the entire surprise about her character. Anyway, Paul dies and we fast-forward through an undefined timeline introducing us to a broken family, starting with daughter Rebecca (Teresa Palmer), who is making her own way independently without the need of other individuals (see her boyfriend for example). The story then shifts over to her brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman), who is going through terror of his own with his mom Sophie (Maria Bello) and her own issues stemming from a life-long bout of depression…and her need to talk to people that aren’t there (not unusual at all). The first act ends with Martin being terrorized by Diana and Sophie communicating directly with her. Not at all suspicious.
The first part of the story does a decent job of introducing and somewhat developing all the main players in the body of the story without much exposition. There’s a lot of visual trust at this point in the story, which means that what you see is laying out the path of the storyline, rather than characters fully explaining it. That’s a credit to actors, director and writers doing their job properly. Everyone seems to be on the same page and there’s a lot of trust going on between actors and director. Because of that, Lights Out’s first act is pulled off beautifully.
Then the second act changes things a bit.
The second begins with Rebecca revealing to Martin, after kidnapping him from their crazy mother, that she had problems with Diana too. So many problems, in fact, that Rebecca left home to detach herself from the situation. Martin confides in his sister a bit more about his mom and situation, as well as expresses his belief that his mother is still salvageable from the situation. Rebecca does her best to comfort her brother and offer up a different scenario, but Martin has none of it and chooses to willingly go back to the care of his mother (okay, he was taken back by a social worker, but whatever). Fearing for her brother’s life, and his sanity, she breaks into her mom’s house to find out any information about Diana and her relationship to Sophie in hopes of putting an end to her reign of terror. With so much at stake, Rebecca, Martin, Rebecca’s boy toy and Sophie decide to have dinner, so they can talk things out…about Diana…which goes as well as you would expect.
Act two reveals everything. It reveals so much that there is almost nothing left for act three to work out. I’m not sure where the writing/acting/directing disconnect happened in act two, but the amount of explanation of characters, events and the big reveal is overwhelming for this tiny act. If you picture this as a rollercoaster ride, the last hill equals out to the most enjoyable crescendo of the ride, then this last hill happens midway through story, which leaves the reminder of the story in act three flat.
As act three begins, the shit has already hit the fan and a resolution is just dragged out until the final conclusion (which I won’t spoil for you). It’s a shame that the last act fell so flat. It certainly deserved better, especially the antagonist.
Anyway, the overall story felt like it lost itself in the middle. It also felt like it really didn’t have a good explanation for how Diana became Diana. We’re simply told to believe what happened to her happened to her, though not given much reason for the rhyme. Once that shallow storytelling passes, you’re left with not much to work with, which is disappointing considering the concept is damn cool. In short, I was incredibly disappointed with the script from act two and beyond. Again, Lights Out deserved much better than what it was given.
That said, the visuals were gorgeous. They really pulled the film through when the story failed it. The play with camera and lighting helped to illuminate the antagonist (no pun intended), as did the play on darkness in the shots. When you see characters flip on/off the lights to transition between Diana in the room and Diana not in the room, it’s so gorgeous. How shadows and darkness were treated worked out beautifully through out the film. There was a lot of unseen and uncertain terror just waiting in the shadows for the characters and I’m glad the filmmakers didn’t do much beyond that to push the visual envelope, as it was perfectly done. It felt practical rather than CGI forced.
Anyway, stay for the visuals, forgive the story and enjoy the terror. That’s my final stance on Lights Out.
In true Warner Home Video fashion, the Blu-ray transfer is nearly flawless. The play on light/dark could have given way to some awful color banding, but the transfer was beautiful. No graininess, no artifacts and no color banding whatsoever. Yet another success Blu-ray transfer story.
Wrapping things up, all you get with this release in terms of features are deleted scenes. Not exciting, but at least it wasn’t just a movie trailer.
Anyway, onto the summary.
