Lights Out

A mediocre horror film that doesn't come up with anything new. All the scenes felt vaguely familiar. The one that irritated me the most was the scene where Diana first appeared. If the woman who saw her had flicked the switch a few more times, I would have gladly disposed of her myself. Diana seemed like a fusion of the creature from The Ring, Freddie Krueger, and Edward Scissorhands. The plot was predictable. Instead of building up an atmosphere, the filmmakers concentrated on a constant supply of scares, but at least I got to wrap my Christmas presents in advance. I’m afraid I’ve seen far worse horror movies. What I consider a plus is that it managed to go without brutally murdering 6 to 8 high school/college students. (2016-11-17)

One of the most anticipated horror films of last year has finally made it onto my "Watched Movies" list. I hate to say it, but I expected much better. The director can be excused somewhat by the fact that this is his debut, aside from a short film. The concept has something to it, and in this regard, the film scores points. However, the execution lagged quite a bit. The story felt rather bland, nothing that stands out, and it's something that has already been filmed by others at least a thousand times. The cast wasn’t that bad, definitely not, but was I thrilled by them? Definitely not. There were plenty of jump scares, which is a plus in one sense, but in some moments, they felt forced, which is a problem. If everything surrounding the entity of Diana had been better explained, I would have considered giving a higher rating. The last 10 minutes or so in the house were probably the best; it had the right intensity, the arrival of the police and their subsequent erasure from the face of the earth lifted the film out of mediocrity. But the ending felt like they really didn’t know how to wrap it up. I definitely won’t be watching this again, and I give it 62%. (2017-04-15)

Already running out of funny ideas for how to describe these boogeyman in da house horror movies for a first date. At the very least, the darkness-addicted villain theme could have made for an interesting filmmaking challenge, where you could have played an action game with the protagonists with cones of light in the style of PC games like Alan Wake, which the lazy filmmakers probably didn't feel like doing, so they repeat the one trick of approaching evil in a flickering environment. It would have been cool to see how Buster Keaton would have handled a similar plot. (2016-11-09)

As a small-scale film, this movie is quite fine. What’s also fine however is how the director took the original idea, which had been made into a short film, and managed to turn it into a feature film. It’s nothing complicated, but it works. It’s not silly at all. People behave the way real people do rather than behaving like rubber figurines on paper. So, all in all? A pleasant horror movie surprise – it won’t offend you and while it won’t make you excited either, it gets the mission fulfilled with a full number of survivors. (2017-12-15)

It seems that simplicity holds power, and that's why the creators of the film chose to take the straightforward path. The story about something lurking in the darkness, whether seen or unseen in the first scene, is harsh, eerie, and unsettling. Yes, it truly seems deceptively simple at first glance, but the creators managed to frighten the audience, and I commend them for that. (2017-01-26)