Review: Lights Out (2016)
One of the better ghost stories. But ffs stop making kids say all this deep shit... no one is buying it.
Lights Out is surprisingly ... unpleasant to watch. Even though it is basically all what we've seen so far withing the subgenre with just a bit of an original concept, it is still quite a good horror film.
It feels very similar to The Ring, maybe because the ghost or demonic entity is portrayed in a similar way - an evil girl who got murdered, the psychiatric ward pictures, etc.
The portrayal of the entity itself was very well done and Diana is really scary to look at, that is mostly because she is this person we cannot clearly see and who is always hiding in the shadows. This makes your mind go on and further imagine what she possibly looks like (which eventually gets ruined in the second half of the film as you get to see her clearly - not a good idea). We also get some jump scares, which to my own surprise were working for me.
The idea with focusing the entire film of presence or so to speak absence of light as the main focus is a brilliant one, because it highlights the fear and anxiety as one can very easily run out of light which could create a very suffocating atmosphere in night scenes, but which the film does not work with very well to create a good thrilling moments. The film, however, further develops this idea into the plot in a clever way, making up a very simple but still good backstory that explains everything.
What makes film this good is probably the fact it doesn't try to make it too deep and complicated and maybe because of this it was kept relatively short. There is also gradation in the plot, so it does not feel dull. Especially in the second half, there is always something going on.
On the other hand, even though the film has a nicely developing plot, the characters and dialogues are just.. meh. We get a bratty girl who keeps acting nothing like her age and is using her boy friend who is not her boyfriend and who the hell even cares, a kid who gets the most deep parts of the dialogues and there is this.. guy.. boyfriend.. whatever who just seems like he was written two minutes before the film started and is completely off.
Still, I would recommend this film, as it is a nice one within this subgenre.
Comments
Post a Comment