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Lights Out (2016)
I’ve made no secret that I have no great love for the modern supernatural ghost movies of the 2010s. The best of the lot is the Conjuring and the rest basically comprised of a series of mediocre horror movies that are as quickly forgotten as they are released. The Sinisters, Oculus, Ouija, Anabelle, the Insidious films, etc, etc. Sure there are one or two stand outs, like I mentioned the Conjuring, Mama, and I hear the Conjuring 2 is decent as well. How does Light Out hold up? Is it a stand-out or just another middle of the road “meh” supernatural horror?
This movie has an old school straight forward approach. Now when we hear those dreaded over-used words “Old school” people tend to think gory 80s slashers full of cliched characters. I meant in the storytelling sense, this movie doesn’t beat around the bush. We get right to the action and the plot keeps moving forward. There’s no real grand mystery, by the halfway point of the movie we already know all we need to about the murderous “ghost” Diana and how she’s torturing the family.
For the most part, my untrained eye couldn’t detect a whole lot of CGI in the movie, and this is awesome. Many supernatural movies now are all CGI and this movie does its best to avoid it at all costs. In its place are good old fashioned camera tricks and the brilliant use of shadows, which brings me to my next point.
One of my favorite aspects of cinema is the use of light and dark as tools. Lights Out is one of the best modern films I’ve seen to really take advantage of this. It is done so well in this movie that I really want to watch a black and white version to see how well it plays, though I’m afraid it might loose some of the tension built up in the full color scenes from the neon and black lights. The director, newcomer David Sandberg, sets up great scares and creepy situations that anyone can relate to since you never know what is in the dark. I'm going to keep an eye out for Sandberg as he has an extremely high potential for his visual prowess, and the common sense to know what to include and what to leave on the floor to make a cohesive film.
The lead actress, Teresa Palmer is believable and attractive, and it’s nice to see the typical gender roles of the woman pining after commitment from a man flipped in this movie. Her boyfriend played by Alexander DiPersia is adequate and does not get in the way of the story
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The end result is a beautiful, straight forward throw back ghost story that is genuinely scary. This isn't the best horror movie ever but it never tries to be. The plot is ridiculously simple and it’s a refreshing film with straightforward, well done scares sure to entertain any horror fan for an hour and a half.
8/10