Plot Summary

Lights Out tells the story of a terrifying apparition that lives in the dark. When she left home long ago, Rebecca thought she’d left her childhood fears behind as well. As a child, she was never sure of what was and wasn’t real when the lights went out – and now her little brother, Martin, is living with similar fears. A frightening and murderous entity with a mysterious attachment to their mentally disturbed mother, Sophie, has come into his life. As Rebecca investigates and closes in on the truth, it becomes increasingly clear that their lives are in danger … and that the only way to survive is to keep the lights on.

Memorable Lines

Doctor: [on recording] You’re getting too attached to Sophie.
Teen Diana: She’s my friend.
Doctor: Well, if that’s true, why did you hurt her?
Teen Diana: She was getting better.

****

Rebecca: We’re living with a dead woman!
Sophie: Ghosts don’t exist.
Rebecca: Well, if she’s not a ghost, then what is she?

****

Diana: Keep the lights out.
[lifts Rebecca into the air]
Diana: I’m not being sent away again. If you don’t stop, I’ll show you where I put your father.

****

Paul: [on video call] Hey, kiddo.
Martin: Hey, Dad. Are you coming home soon?
Paul: Yeah, uh, in an hour or so. What’s up? Where’s Mom?
Martin: I don’t think she’s feeling good.

****

Diana: [after being shot at] That won’t hurt me.
Sophie: [puts gun to her head] This will. There’s no you without me.
Rebecca: Mom, what are you doing?
Sophie: Saving your lives.

****

Thoughts from the HauntedHouses.com team

Lights Out was originally a three-minute viral short that was truly frightening. It depicted a nameless woman who spots a dark silhouette at the end of her hallway after she flicks the lights off on her way to bed. When they’re back on, there’s nothing there. When she turns them off again, the figure reappears, suddenly closer, sending her hurrying off to the futile sanctuary under her covers. It’s perfect in the way that only something so brief can be — no explanations, no context, just a funny-freaky encapsulation of what it’s like to scare yourself silly in the midst of surroundings that are totally mundane and familiar in the light of day.

As a full-length movie, Lights Out has had to grow a larger plot with additional characters, who need not just names but histories. The apparition now has both: Diana’s lurid backstory involves a mental institution, severe photosensitivity, and possible psychic powers, none of which make her the slightest bit more scary than the mysterious presence in the short. But at 81 minutes, unfolding in a handful of key locations, and opting for practical effects and clever framing over computer-generated imagery, Lights Out is still lean and concentrated, and it benefits from that spareness.

If the wraith in the Lights Out short is a symbol of the implacable pull of nighttime terrors, the one in the movie is more of a stand-in for mental illness. At times, the film comes across like a less artful, don’t-ask-too-many-questions version of The Babadook from the viewpoint of the children: skittish twenty-something Rebecca (Teresa Palmer), who left home as soon as she could, and her younger brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman), who still lives with their mother, Sophie (Maria Bello). Sophie has gone off her meds, draped the house in blackout curtains, and is talking to shadowy corners. Martin grows so terrified and sleep-deprived that, at the sight of him, Rebecca allows herself to get sucked back into the troubled home life she’d so vehemently fled.

From the chilling opening encounter that leaves Martin fatherless, there’s no question that Diana is real and that she is deadly. But she’s also directly linked to Sophie’s least stable periods, as if she were a flesh-and-blood manifestation of Sophie’s downswings, dark days made literal. Sophie is the focus of Diana’s attention, but we see her through her kids, who are torn between wanting to save their mother from Diana and leaving her to save themselves.

The only-seen-in-the-dark concept is still highly effective, even when it’s played for camp (like when Rebecca’s dreamy doofus of a boyfriend scrambles to escape a supernatural encounter). A scene in which Diana shows up in Rebecca’s apartment between blinks from the light of the neon sign outside the window is another frighteningly good set piece. It feels just enough like a bad dream to possibly be one, this dark figure crouched in the doorway, scratching at the floor. It’s simple, but that’s why it works, touching off the gut-twisting feeling of being unable to decide if it’s better to keep an eye on something potentially terrifying or to look somewhere else and just hope it goes away.

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