LIGHTS OUT

Directed by: David H Sandberg

Starring by: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Maria Bello, Alicia Vela-Bailey

Production: Atomic Monster

Usually I go to the cinema to watch horror alone, but I had company when I watched this one…someone who says love horror but watch it with eyes shut and head covered with jacket which I thinks scares people who accidentally look aside at you in the middle of the dark. 


Fortunately, she didn’t made people scream as well but I didn’t blame her. What do you expect if the movie started with hideous parts of brutal murder from a creature that appears when the lights off, and that’s what she saw as a trailer preview on a TV's ticket box outside before we entered the theater.

This movie was the expanded from original horror short movie that received many attention in 2013 on the internet. I remember the cast in the short movie got her role in this long version at the beginning of scene as a character of Esther. And she’s the one who told Paul that there was something in the dark at their office.

For you who never seen the short movie version yet, just click on here...

When Paul was alone, he was attacked by the creature who shown herself in something that I mention as creepy form, squatting with legs open with long sleeves of dangling claws in the midst of gloom. Paul realized that the monster was not able to force the light and run like hell to his office to lock himself up with lights on. But it managed to switch off the light and killed Paul in brutal way. And that’s what the best moment she asked a lot because she’s busy to hide behind the cover.

Paul’s death drift us to his family…it was little Martin who saw what’s wrong after the death of his father. His mom, wakes him up in the middle of the night, talking to someone that he can’t see in the dark room of hers and asking something terrified about how they, she and somebody else, wakes him up?

The boy decided to contact his older sister, Rebecca, and asked her to stay on her apartments. Sensing something is not right she let Martin spent the night and on that night she experienced a terrible appearance of some creature that brought fear in her childhood. It almost murdered her if she failed to reach the switch.

Rebecca thought it was only in her dream but when she found the scratch on her apartment’s floor that shows the name of Diana, she begin to understand that it’s not just a bad dream. The emerge of Diana, lead Rebecca to investigate more and when she’s digs in with her boyfriend, Brett, to her mother’s house, Rebecca found material that had been gathered and collected by her step father about her mother.

Apparently Sophie was a patient on mental institution when she was 7. She met Diana on that place and they became close friend. Diana suffering unusual condition that made her skin is light-sensitive. The doctor tried some extreme treatment with lights but it turned out make Diana died during the medicine.

I don’t know about you but it leaves me two questions….If Paul investigated Sophie and knew about her death friend who turned out to be darkness monster, then why he seemed just realized, at that time, the creature can’t walk through the light in the early scenes?  The second question, which came from my friend, could 7 years old kid suffering mental illness?

Questions which I leave to you to figures it out then…but perhaps it’s only my act to put it as a material for my next article…

And Sophie told Martin the story about her old buddy, Diana, from the sanatorium when they’ve been on movie’s night together. Diana came to the room and almost hurt Martin before he run away. Back to his sister’s place, Martin relieved because Rebecca believe him about Diana. And that’s when a small mistake appears in the scene.

It was a flash and almost unrealized if you skip a moment, but I saw when Rebecca put milk next to the jug on the table. The next second when she moved behind Martin to comb her brother’s hair the empty jug was fully filled.

   

Together they stood to confront Sophie about Diana because they realized that their mother attached by the creature. Sophie becomes some door to Diana to reveal into the real world and she vanished only when their mother’s mental health was in good shape. Sophie denied the whole thing, blame it as her fault because she abandons her long time ago, just like Rebecca did when she left home after her father gone.

But this time she’d tried to fix whole things up, she stays at Sophie’s house to company Martin who decided not to leave their mother. And that night she found out that her mother was control by Diana when she met her in front of her room and she put a note saying “I need help” and something draw Sophie’s coat to go back inside. And that night the terror went climax…the terror you’ve should watched yourself because it’s really not that high if you just read it…

My notes for you if you watched the movie…just take a look around at Sophie’s house very carefully. Suddenly I realized that it has to be the same house as used in Ouija…it was the same chandelier that killed the girl in early stage…it had the same kitchen…and the same basement with same furnace as well…so I thought it’s only Indonesian people who used same house to different movie, over and over again sometimes, but turned out that it also made by Hollywood to save production costs.

Despite the efficiency factor, I like what they shows you about the love of a mother, no matter how insane she is, is bigger than her care for another…and you should’ve not take a hike when troubles come…everybody love a person who stay on your back and not leaving to face the hard part, just like what Rebecca did to Martin…and Brett to Rebecca…which finally leads to new bond…

In the end I told my friend that the movie picked a good title which close to our daily experience…are you dare to turn off the light on your bedroom when you sleep tonight? Just tell me about it…