Lights Out

Numero dos! Today's horror film (watched oddly early in the morning) was Lights Out. The film centers around a mentally unstable mother, her plot-assisting scared young son, and estranged early 20s daughter who can't commit to her chest-haired and tattooed boyfriend. An entity starts tormenting them: a shadowy woman who can't be exposed to light named Diana. It turns out the mother and Diana the Light-Sensitive Spirit (patent pending on using that title for the Casper the Friendly Ghost sequel about Casper finally finding true love) got chummy when they were both doin' time in the local insane asylum. Turns out it's crazy mom's fault that Diana is hanging around tormenting people and killing her new husband and stuff. That wascally mom, tying crazed sunscreen-addled chicks to the material plane and all.

Sssssshhhh, I'm talking to my dead photosensitive BFF!

A slightly interesting (albeit horror-silly) premise aside, this movie is pretty much the vanilla-ist of vanilla horror. Vanilla as, say, Elmer Fudd, for example. It's got the whole checklist there for vanilla-ness: scary, badly lit house, cheap jumpscares, scared little kid, dysfunctional parent/child relationship, cops called to the scene and being killed because they're too stupid to listen, etc. It's not bad, it's just kinda there; it doesn't add anything to the already crowded malevolent, jumpscare-y spirit genre. What it really comes down to is that this film is a pretty cool, freaky idea stretched over too much bread. Lights Out is based off of a short film of the same name, a film that in just over two minutes accomplishes vastly more than the feature-length film does in an hour and twenty minutes. For your viewing pleasure (and to save you a feature-length runtime of more of the same), here's the short film:

 Yeah, Bilbo Baggins was right. I hope someone gets that reference. 

Ultimately: this movie exists, which is cool I guess, but the same movie already exists at a 1/50th of the runtime. And it's better. 

6.5/10