In the tradition of the best horror, Lights Out leaves all of this on the edges of the story, the better for you to fill in some of the blanks on your own. There’s so much in this film that feels informed by a life haunted by depression, from the way family matriarch Sophie ( Maria Bello) sometimes just locks herself in her bedroom because she’s not sure she can spend time around her kids to the way that her daughter, Becca ( Teresa Palmer), runs her fingers along scars on her arms that are from Diana’s long nails but might as well be from self-harm. In particular, Diana has haunted the same family for two generations, and this serves as a sneaky way for the film’s screenwriter, Eric Heisserer, to explore the ways parents fear their own mental illnesses might be passed along to their children.
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Not since The Babadook have I seen a movie that used its monster as a metaphor for mental illness as effectively as this one does. Good: The use of the monster as a metaphor is better thought-out than in many films Becca (Teresa Palmer) has been putting up with Diana for her entire life. Named Diana, she cuts a creepy figure in silhouette, and she’s got long, long fingernails she can use to attack. Lights Out is obviously filmed on a smaller budget - it seems to take place in about two different locations, with just five or six characters - but the fact that it can turn literally any place into a house of horrors simply by flipping a light switch gives it a great boost when it comes to staging terrifying sequences.Īnd make no mistake: This is one scary monster. In particular, the film uses everything from candles to cellphone screens to increase the tension in moments when the monster has, say, cut power to a city block and the characters need to cross vast swaths of darkness with only their wits to protect them.
There have been other creatures like this in movie history (perhaps most famously in Pitch Black, the film that spawned Vin Diesel’s Riddick character), but what makes Lights Out so much fun is that it takes place in our world, where light sources can pop up just about anywhere. Considering that films themselves are just contrasts of light and darkness, the concept gives director David F. Let’s just start with the fact that a monster that can’t attack when someone is standing in a pool of light is a great idea for a movie monster. Good: The monster is terrific on a bunch of levels See if you can spot the monster in this image. I’ll warn you before I do so, however.īut before that, let’s talk about the good, the bad, and the divisive of Lights Out. So to talk about why I enjoyed Lights Out so much, I’m going to have to spoil some things. But it’s the kind of movie where I realized about 10 minutes in how wrapped up I was in the lives of the characters, and realized with about 10 minutes left that I was holding my breath that the director and screenwriter wouldn’t screw everything up.Īnd while I loved the ending, it’s proven incredibly divisive for what it might seem to say about depression. Yes, it has problems - one big one in particular. And the movie’s central metaphor - the monster is depression! - is surprisingly durable, allowing for some great character moments. Lights Out originally ran longer and had another ending where Diana returns, which rendered Sophie's sacrifice pointless test audiences hated this epilogue, so it was trimmed to the current version.There are sequences in this film that left the audience at my screening joyfully applauding their creativity and audacity.
Some read the unfortunate subtext that Sophie "freed" her family from the burden of her depression by taking her own life, but Sandberg - who has suffered from depression himself - quickly stated this wasn't the message at all. The ending of Lights Out sees Sophie realize Diana is linked to the world through her, so to save her children she commits suicide. Sandberg intended to portray Diana as an embodiment of Sophie's depression, though the film's ending accidentally proved controversial in this regard.
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While light scares her off, towards the end of the film she can be seen via black light as a thin woman with horrible skin burns. Lights Out reveals Diana's motive is to kill anybody seeking to get Sophie treatment, which includes her children. In death, Diana's spirit tethered herself to Sophie and has been with her since childhood, and later caused the death of her husband when he tried to get her help.
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