Review: “Lights Out”

David F. SANDBERG (Dir.), “Lights Out”, New Line Cinema/Grey Matter/Atomic Monster, 2016.

There’s a term used in writing that doesn’t get much of an airing, although it should. It’s “scaffolding”. This word refers to the writer’s research and indicates the background material upon which the narrative rests. The material is necessarily “background” because it remains unobserved, understood in the scenery of the story but – ideally – never, ever highlighted. A good writer respects their audience and trusts them to know what’s going on, never needing to point out or highlight the amount of research that they’ve undertaken. A good writer knows that, despite the hours of research that they’ve done, very little of it will appear in the final product. That sounds weird so let me try to explain it graphically. Here’s a ‘cloud’ breakdown of “Lights Out”:

Essentially, all of the terms and words in this graphic (and it’s not comprehensive) are used in telling this story. A lot of these subject headings are not explicitly mentioned or described during the story. However, you know absolutely that the writers of the screenplay checked out and looked up every topic on offer. Once they had their background information, they then pieced together a story that didn’t need to directly mention UV-light treatments of clinical depression; or discuss the regulations concerning Child Welfare in the US; or even mention the candlepower of the screen of an average mobile telephone. They were confident in their research, and they were confident that it would ring true for their audience: they could then toss out their scaffolding. The amount of blue in my diagram simulates the (approximate) amount of time that an overt reference to the background material crops up in the dialogue of the film.

Now here’s another ‘cloud’ (see if you can tell what story it’s based on):

Stephen King can’t let go of his research. If he discovers something in the course of writing a book, he has to let you know about it, and he has to let you know that he knows. Essentially, he likes to show off. What this means is that his books are bloated – bogged down with extraneous information that he isn’t able to trust you to take for granted – and they carry on interminably, well after the point when they might have been entertaining. This is why there are editors out there.

Some writers are so popular that they stare down any notion of editorial trimming, They get all Jack Kerouac on their publishers and demand to include all and everything that they scrawl down, when what they really need is someone with clear vision and a shiny-new red Sharpie. By the time King wrote It, he was able to demand that editors stay away – and publishers were willing to go “okay!” because messing with something that doesn’t seem to be broken is often a bad move. But the books that show up are bad – they are flabby; overwrought; self-involved. It happened to King’s books; it happened to J.K Rowling’s books; even Charles Dickens suffered from it – he was padding like crazy to fill column-inches in his own magazines.

Some readers enjoy it if the book that they’re reading is a huge brick of a thing – it means that, for them, the enjoyment of reading lasts longer. But wading through a bog of interminable prose is never as satisfying as gliding across words that sing with clarity – even if it’s only a short story. Try reading Yukio Mishima’s The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, or Theophile Gautier’s The Jinx, or Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and you’ll see what I mean. Strange to say, King himself knows this – his short stories are some of the best things he’s ever written.

Getting on to the point of this post, “Lights Out” is a vehicle that has left its support structure far behind. It doesn’t preach, or talk down to its audience, and it assumes that we will all understand and keep up. There is depth to the film, because what little backstory there is that is flagged to us, we are able to follow up at our leisure should we so choose. Like all of the best movies out there, it’s tight; controlled; and fitted together like a Rolex. Writing of this calibre is few and far between in movieland these days.

The story concerns Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) a strong-willed and self-reliant young woman, negotiating the parameters of her relationship with her well-smitten boyfriend, Bret (Alexander diPersia). She is summoned to the school of her much younger half-brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman), after Child Services is unable to reach their mother, and is told that he keeps falling asleep in class. It turns out that, every time the lights go out, something prowls around his home; something dark and disturbing; something that his mother Sophie (Maria Bello) – having stopped taking her medication – talks to and treats as a friend.

The creature that stalks the darkness is Sophie’s mysterious companion Diana. She cannot exist in light and vanishes whenever they come on, but when the lights are out, she rampages ferociously, teleporting to distant locales and slipping past locks and other restraints. We learn, from the pre-credit sequence, that Diana is responsible for the death of Sophie’s second husband (Martin’s father), which has been attributed to less supernatural causes, and we discover much later that Rebecca’s father – believed absconded – has most likely been scratched off Diana’s hit-list as well. Things quickly escalate to a confrontation but there are problems: Martin wants Rebecca to help rescue his mum; Rebecca couldn’t care less about her mother but refuses to bail on Martin; and Sophie wants all of them – Martin, Rebecca and Diana – to just get along. Diana of course, just wants Sophie all to herself. Locked up. In a very dark place.

The situation unfolds with everyone trying to keep the lights on while Diana remorselessly finds ways to ensure that she stays in her element. As things progress, Rebecca unearths more and more clues about Diana’s origins and why Sophie seems so helpless in Diana’s grip. The final resolution is grim and completely logical but only arrives after the body count starts inexorably to climb.

Much of the horror here is of the “jump scare” variety, with Diana showing up dramatically whenever the lights fail, and some might be inclined to roll their eyes a bit at this. However, while these frights are a regular occurrence, they happen against a background of sustained dread and rising fear: I guarantee, in every scene of this flick, you will end up ignoring the actors while you scan the background over their shoulders, waiting for the horror to spring forth. Many of these kinds of films generally make sure that the characters do something stupid in order to facilitate a gag later on: not here. The rising tension of this movie never, ever resorts to making the characters do something illogical just to ensure a kill. We are right there with our heroes and our dismay when Diana gains the upper hand is as palpable as their own. This is real skill: sustaining this kind of emotion is tricky and this is a masterclass in how to do it.

There’s a bit with a UV blacklight that didn’t make a lot of sense to me – someone dropped the ball a bit with their science research, I think – but it’s a small quibble when balanced against everything else that’s working so damned well. This film takes all of the most primal human fears about what’s out there in the dark (in the closet; under the bed) and embodies them in a devastating fashion, without kneecapping credibility and without breaking the mood with inappropriate humour (there are some funny bits but they’re impeccably handled and they never ruin things). This is a small budget movie and, like most small films, is relatively small in its scope – I suspect that’s why it probably didn’t get as much hype as it deserved. The director has gone on to make “Shazam”, and its upcoming sequel, so it was definitely a useful springboard, I guess. Personally though, I could do with fewer grown men in tights and more of this. Please.

Four-and-a-half Tentacled Horrors.