SCARY: Lights Out. SCARY: Lights Out.
* * *
LIGHTS OUT
Directed by David F. Sandberg, with Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Alexander DiPersia, Maria Bello, Billy Burke and Alicia Vela-Bailey.
REVIEW: Justin Lowe
A SURPRISINGLY maternal horror movie that relies as much on fraying emotional bonds as supernatural suspense to create tension, Lights Out deals with primal fears that threaten to unravel a family’s fundamental relationships and sanity.
Eric Heisserer’s screenplay preserves Sandberg’s central protagonist, now identified as Rebecca (Teresa Palmer), a young woman who had good reason to move out on her unstable mother Sophie (Maria Bello) not long after her father abandoned them. With a history of mental illness, Sophie’s episodes were disturbing, but not nearly as awful as her frequent hallucinations.
So she moved to downtown Los Angeles, never returning home until her 10-year-old stepbrother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) begins suffering similar symptoms after his father Paul (Billy Burke) mysteriously dies. Martin tells Rebecca that their mother has been secretly conversing with someone named Diana (Alicia Vela-Bailey), who seems inseparably attached to Sophie, but only emerges in the dark. Rebecca quickly recognises the frightening threat that Diana poses, so she relocates Martin to her apartment. Soon however, Child Protective Services orders Rebecca to bring him back, forcing her to realise that safeguarding her family will mean confronting Diana.
Heisserer’s elaboration of a malevolent being that lurks in darkness because it can’t survive in the light develops expressive proportions with Sandberg’s interpretation of Diana as a charred, spidery figure with piercing claws, intent on protecting her relationship with Sophie.
Palmer capably seizes the role of Rebecca with grim determination that develops with increasing understanding of Sophie’s dire predicament. – Reuters/ Hollywood Reporter