Film Review: LIGHTS OUT (USA 2016)

LIGHTS OUT (USA 2016) **
Directed by David F. Sandberg

Starring: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Maria Bello

Review by Gilbert Seah

LIGHTS OUT is a new low budget horror produced by HOSTEL’s James Wan and directed by David F. Sandberg based on his short story.

LIGHTS OUT is based on several potentially scary premises. There is the mother with mental health problems, the imaginary friend who could be a figment of mother’s imagination (or not), a boy scared of the dark and a monster that disappears and burns in light, surviving only in the dark. But one second thoughts, none of those are original concepts. The last one, though seemingly new is the same premise used in all vampire films.

But the movie plays confidently as a film that scares from things that go bump in the night. A large part of the film obviously takes place at night. The…