How do you catch a ghost when you only see it in the dark?

Back in 2013, director David F Sandberg created a short film titled Lights Out. Due to the success of the short film in 2016 we finally have a full-length feature film!

The film has Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) a woman who lives on her own and is currently in a “fickle” relationship with a man (basically a dude who looks like a younger version of Johnny Depp).

Other characters include Rebecca’s little brother Martin who currently lives with his mother (Maria Bello). Martin struggles to sleep at night once he starts to witness a strange like shadow figure in the home and to top it off is also overhearing his mother talking to her self during the nights.

One day Rebecca receives a phone call from her little brother’s school who advises her that Martin is falling asleep in class due to lack of sleep…. Martin is full of fear and has no interest in returning home to his mother.

Lights Out is a simple (but brilliant!) ghost story. Everything we see in this is so simple & creative I question ‘how is it that no director has ever thought of this?’

A ghost that can only be seen in darkness but then disappears in light is fantastic. This also gave our director many opportunities on how this story can be told. 

The director has also done an outstanding job on the audio mixing. Hearing loud scratching noises around the rear speakers or creating the tension with audio effects has been done with great skill!

Are you currently or have you ever been afraid of the Dark? I know I used to be when I was a kid! And personally hated the dark! Straight away in some way, everyone can relate to this film simply because they have been afraid of the dark at some point in their life. Am I wrong?!?

Lights Out is not a gory slasher film but a clever film that contains many jump scare for the audience. Having watched many films in my lifetime, there haven’t been many recent films that feels this new and fresh. I sat in my seat trying to pick what would happen next and in most cases I was wrong. This movie is NOT predictable. The movies that are getting most interest this year are reboots & sequels- Ghostbusters, Batman, Jason Bourne & Star Trek and the list goes on. I loved how I visited my cinema with no clue what I was getting myself into. While I didn’t personally jumped out of seat or yelled out a lot, many people in my cinema many people did.

Lights Out is a great suspense story that you will enjoy until the credits roll, which brings me to my one and only major gripe with the film…The 3rd act is fairly rushed.

8.1/10

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Review Written by Peter Walkden