I saw the trailer for Lights Out a few weeks ago and I
thought it looked great. It was really creepy and looked like it could be the
next popular ghost franchise like The
Ring or The Grudge. Unfortunately, it had
already been and gone at the cinema, so I had to wait patiently for the Blu-ray
release.
(Minor spoiler alert!)
The story is about the ghost
of a dead crazy girl called Diana. Unfortunately, for the living characters, she's the type of ghost that can
attack people, and being a malevolent spirit, attacking people is her modus
operandi. The good news is that she doesn't like the light. When she was alive, she was
friends with a girl called Sophie. Sophie is now an adult with children
who suffers from clinical depression and some other undisclosed mental illness.
When things are bad for Sophie, Diana appears. Naturally, the general
consensus with the other characters is that Diana isn't real and is a symptom of Sophie's illness. Obviously, this changes during the movie as
various characters see Diana and end
up in perilous situations.
I think this is where the film
works. It taps into the fear of the close bonds between family members being severed
whether by mental illness or a third party, and the subsequent abandonment. Mix
this in with an original supernatural concept, plenty of tension and scary moments, and you have the foundation for a winning Horror movie.
I really enjoyed Lights Out. It's fast paced, really sinister in places and has some great acting which helps the audience attain a
suspension of disbelief and get sucked into
Diana's world. It's also been a huge success, so naturally a sequel is in
development.
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