Review for Lights Out (2016) Directed by David F. Sandberg. Starring: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Maria Bello. IMDB says “When her little brother, Martin, experiences the same events that once tested her sanity, Rebecca works to unlock the truth behind the terror, which brings her face to face with an entity that has an attachment to their mother, Sophie.”

In 2013 director David Sandberg hit the internet by storm with his short film, Lights Out. It wasn’t long after that the announcement came that a feature length adaptation would be made after the popularity of the short. This was the main thing that had me worried going into the film. Was this just a money grab the studio was trying to pick up on and would in turn produce a sub-par movie? This movie could have very well fallen down that rabbit hole, but fortunately it did the exact opposite.

Lights Out tells the story of Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) and her fight against a dark entity that is plaguing her family. Years after having seen the entity, Diana, as a child and being told she was crazy, Rebecca finds herself confronting Diana once again when she starts terrorizing her brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman).

I really enjoyed this film a lot and it turned out to be more fun than I could have imagined. With a pretty solid story, Sandberg was able to transform his short into a solid 81-minute jump-fest.
I really enjoyed the way that Sandberg chose to shoot the film using as much natural light as possible. Whether he was using candlelight, a black light tube or even cell phones, his lighting choices made for some memorable and creepy cinematography. Also choosing to shoot as much practical effects as possible speaks a lot for the director and allows him to provide a more realistic feeling film and “monster”, ultimately delivering some genuine scares that will make you wanna look away from what’s lurking in the dark. Even Diana was created using a suit instead of resorting to a CGI creature.

Everyone was good in the film and gave a standard horror movie performance, nothing over the top or extraordinary. But the characters they play are actually characters you begin to empathize with and you want to see them survive. One example is Rebecca’s boyfriend in the movie, Bret (Alexander DiPersia), who ends up being a really likable character as well and had the audience rooting for him and even laughing as he escapes the monster by any means necessary.

This movie may be a jump scare machine, but it works well for this feature. The final act is one scare after another and will have audiences’ hearts racing for sure! Sandberg delivers a really fun and enjoyable fright fest that needs to be seen in theatres for full impact. The movie may be called Lights Out, but after you leave you might just be sleeping with the lights on.