![]() ![]() Gabriel Bateman and Teresa Palmer fear the dark There are definite times that Sandberg makes an audience jump or tense up in their seats. The appearances of the ungainly Diana creature that only exists as a shadowy shape who is there when the lights are out but vanishes when they are on create a sense of uncanniness. ![]() Sandberg fails to create a sufficiently scary film. James Wan is an exemplary director when it comes to his own material but the string of films that come out under his producing name – Annabelle (2014), Demonic (2015), The Nun (2018) and The Curse of La Llorona (2019) – have left a good deal to be desired. Although perhaps more than any of these, I kept thinking of one of the Monkey Ghosts from Apichatpong Weerasthakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010). The Diana creature reminded me of the much more sophisticated The Babadook (2014), or even the Crooked Man that turns up in James Wan’s own The Conjuring 2 (2016). Lights Out feels exactly like one of the horror films made circa 2002 – I kept flashing back to works like They (2002) and Darkness Falls (2003) and their boogeymen (boogeypeople?) that lurk in the dark. The script comes from Eric Heisserer who has specialised in writing genre scripts for other people’s material with the likes of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Final Destination 5 (2011) and The Thing (2011), although he did subsequently write the script for Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016), Bird Box (2018) and Bloodshot (2020), as well as developed/produced the tv series Shadow and Bone (2021- ). ![]() This gained attention and was promoted by James Wan, director of high-profile horror films such as Saw (2004), Insidious (2010) and The Conjuring (2013), who acts as co-producer through his Atomic Monster production company. Sandberg had previously made the film as a three-minute short Lights Out (2013) starring Lotta Losten (who appears as Billy Burke’s assistant in the opening scenes here). Lights Out – not to be confused with or related to the classic Arch Oboler horror radio series Lights Out (1934-47) – is a feature-length directorial debut for Swedish director David F. ![]()
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