Lights Out (2016)

Best movie ever!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This is good for a scary movie at a pre-teen slumber party, but not much else. I will admit that I haven't seen the short that's mentioned, but I'm going to make a point to hint for it now. I will also say that this movie met my expectations/I wasn't expecting a total masterpiece. Most of this movie's issue is the concept. I will give cast and production credit where credit is due: David F. Sanberg and James Wan made the best that they possibly could out of the mud puddle of a plot. If you like far fetched plots on the same tier as Orphan and are not completely fed up by movies overdoing jump scares, you'll probably like this one.

Cheap jump scares throughout. There are some genuinely scary moments but it wasn't enough. The acting is decent thankfully, but that couldn't save the film for me. The story in itself while somewhat original was unbelievable and ridiculous. What happened to the horror genre? That's my review in a nutshell. No point in going on for six paragraphs.

Being bloated is never a good thing, however, also being too short while not really delivering the full story, and/or the full story in a compelling way, is also not a good thing. Lights Out lost me with its weak story development, its pacing as well as its short running time.Nobody ever explains the full situation to Bret. Diana's story comes to light in a very dim fashion. Rebecca is busy calling here mother a "nutjob", while she knows exactly what she is going through, and what makes it especially worse, is how that was shown literally in the scene before that comment. Sure, perhaps she is in denial, however the film doesn't portray that very well about her. All she seems like is distant, walls up, closed in and impersonal.Also, Martin knew at his age that Diana was the cause of his father's death, yet Rebecca spent all her life, under the impression that her father just ran out on them, when she went through the very same ordeal Martin did. Okay sure, maybe she didn't click for whatever reason, but for her to inform her mother, as if she didn't know either, just raises some concerns.The movie cutting to post Paul's death without some kind of reference or anchor, was jarring. For a short while you find yourself asking, how long has he been dead? It feels like its been a day, but the film gives the impression that it has been much longer, maybe even years, but is it? Can it?Then there's Rebecca still opting to stay in the house, to try and save her mother, when she already knows that Diana cannot harm her, which renders the entire endeavour moot.Lights Out has issues, that aren't necessarily plot holes, but rather more disregarded and dismissed expositions, and at 1 hour 15 minutes, I guess something was always going to suffer.From there, as gorgeous as Teresa Palmer is, and my oh my she is a stunner, her performance in this film was subpar, while everybody else was somewhat forgettable. The horror bit of the film was satisfying enough however, though it felt a bit repeated since it occurred in the same manner throughout the film without evolving. 5.4/10.

'Lights Out' is a semi-conventional haunted house film, with one person being haunted, but the rest of the family able to see the spirit/demon/ghost/whatever, rather than one of those movies where it's only visible to the kid. Good start, with the shadowy apparition offing Paul (Burke), who is Rebecca (Palmer)'s step-dad, Martin (Bateman)'s dad, and Sophie (Bello)'s husband. Turns out the thing can't appear or been seen in the light and lurks in the shadows...The film does a good job of introducing the characters, including Rebecca's boyfriend Brett (DiPersia), but also doesn't let too long go without any scares or tension. The beauty of the evil being in the shadows means that you're always looking behind characters or in the corners of every shot! The backstory of how Diana was Sophie's childhood friend emerges and goes some (but certainly not all) of the way to explaining the haunting.There's a decent body count, scares, tension and shocks throughout, a good score, and it doesn't overstay it's welcome. The ending is good and logical. All the actors, including the kid, are above average. One of the better horror films I've seen in a while - scary, without being too stupid or gory.