Lights Out

For a movie that relies so heavily on a single, not especially groundbreaking visual effect — now you see the bogeyman, now you don’t — Lights Out is crazy scary.

Best of all, it’s tight at 81 minutes, which means a 7 p.m. screening gets you out of the theatre while it’s still light out, thank God.

Bello gives a tremulous wacko-mom performance from which she has eliminated every whisper of camp. She’s both sympathetic and infuriating, and her scenes with her daughter hint at a more painful, complicated emotional history than the movie has time to explore, though it’s nice that it bothers to explore it at all.

Lights Out is an effective, tidy little chiller; basically the same sneak-up-in-the-dark scare over and over. But hey, as we’ve learned through decades of horror movies, that stuff works.

That the film occasionally succumbs to certain rudimentary hallmarks of industrial studio horror is regrettable, but for the most part it’s agreeably suspenseful, date-night arm-squeezing genre fare.

The film is blatantly, unmistakably about mental illness, and that makes it hard to ignore or forgive what it ends up saying (hopefully by accident) on the subject.

This one, a debut feature, is awfully inept, whereas the short isn’t long enough for ineptitude to take hold, or for a story to develop.

[10/10] PROs: 1. A horror film could'nt be any better.Amazing. 2.Nice concept of Ghost and it's weakness (sensitivity from light). **** a good story that kept unfolding slowly to the very last of the movie. 4.Gives a message what courage and love can do together to destroy the evil. CONs: None.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Lights Out is a entraining with good acting (most of the time) but has a lot of problems but it's still a enjoyable fun movie .

Why short films should remain short films. Whether evil spirits are ghosts or monsters, it is not very scary and lacks narrative.

Sandberg's film has empty threat, stake, emotion, impact on us, its exhausted audience, that cannot wait for the light to turn on and the screen to turn off. Lights Out The co-writer and director David F. Sandberg has nothing to offer. And he is inviting us. This daring is neither admirable nor childish enough by us to reject it. We cannot, I cannot just say NO to the small wonders that Sandberg in its own bumps and trumps, can display. Now, is that all a coincidence or a genuine artistry taking place. What we do know for sure, is that this is an empty call. It is the part where the makers are bluffing. But even in a bluff, after a point, there is something that is revealed. Good or bad. In here, the void is dangerously arrogant. It is not going to and will not succumb to any obligatory notes of the film. Often this bold take could be beneficial but here it is peddled to nowhere. I would gladly stand up on the stage that it is not their fault, they didn't have any answers. But in haters' defense, there wasn't any question. First of all the genre isn't respected itself. It claims to be of horror and functions- or does not function- like a psychological drama. Psychological drama? Sure, why not. I'll take that as well. But when it comes the time for it to be that, it directs towards the sci-fi aspects of the storyline. There is no coherence on where the boundary is. What is white and what is black. What is in and what is out. What is light and what is dark. And now you can understand my annoyance when the warning sign, the title on the poster screams, Lights Out.