Lights Out

This review may contain spoilers!

At the heart of every horror needs to be a good monster and this film delivers that. I would give Lights Out a 6/10.

There is a lot of work in this film put towards constructing this monster of 'Diana' - a shadow creature who preys upon a mentally ill mother and her family; what I liked about this monster was that she wasn't bound by much, she travelled across several locations and had rather clear motivations which made for a good antagonist. The rising build of tension in this film was extremely well done, and I felt like the movie carried along at a great pace. The cinematography was really well done, framing was so key in a film that relied upon showing the contrast between light and shadow and it was masterfully pulled off.

Teresa Palmer, who played Rebecca, made for a rather good protagonist for this film once the story moved away from her character's romance subplot; Palmer brings out quite a strong character who is very active in fighting Diana. Alicia Vela-Bailey, who played Diana, brought one of the best horror antagonists that I've seen for a while; Vela-Bailey's scenes where she gets to do voice work are brilliant because she makes Diana feel more like a character rather than just a spooky entity.

however the best performance came from Gabriel Bateman, who played Martin. Bateman is a really good child actor who really sells his terror well in this film. I liked that he had understanding over what was happening and how he had as much of an active role in fighting Diana as Palmer did. I especially liked that he had a strong relationship with his Mum despite her connection to Diana, it made both characters much easier to sympathise with.

There was a lot of this plot that let the greater film down, the frayed relationships between characters wasn't all that interesting, the romance subplot was very corny and the child services aspect of the film probably didn't need to be there. The editing had some major issues in this film, there were several moments where the cuts didn't transition well and brought me right out of the film. The score for this film was awfully generic as well, it was a shame the music didn't do anything unique.

Alexander DiPersia, who played Bret, was this really unnecessary love interest who took away from Palmer's character in this film; he didn't have all that much chemistry with Palmer and was definitely given more screen time than he needed. Billy Burke, who played Paul, was a boring intro to this film; sure what happened to his character was interesting but there just wasn't much impact made by him personally. Maria Bello, who played Sophie, gave a performance that was as wooden as a board; her portrayal of a mentally ill character was stereotypical at best (I won't even get into the whole mentally ill person killing themselves to free their family plot point). Andi Osho, who played Emma, was a rather unnecessary character for this film; I didn't really see the significance of a child services role as a part of the plot.