The short is a fantastic example of a clever and well executed idea. It just works, so good, and I was super excited about the feature. So it hurts to say that the feature is far from the clever short.
Why? They milk the concept bone dry in a couple of minutes. You get it all in the intro and everything after the title is just a downward spiral with a bunch of desperate attempts to keep it going. I hoped this could be a great feature version of the weeping angles from Doctor Who. If you haven't seen that you should watch the episode "Blink" right now. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1000252/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
Some of my favorite horror movies are the original Chainsaw Massacre, Blair witch project and The Evil Dead. What do they have in common? They leave a lot to your own imagination. You get bits and pieces of explanation but they never give too much. They let you fill in most of the blanks. Lights out wants to explain all of it and centers the whole story about that explanation. In that way they miss the thing that made the concept so good. The fear of the dark and the fear of the unknown. When they take that from us we're left with jumpscares and predictable story lines.
Why? They milk the concept bone dry in a couple of minutes. You get it all in the intro and everything after the title is just a downward spiral with a bunch of desperate attempts to keep it going. I hoped this could be a great feature version of the weeping angles from Doctor Who. If you haven't seen that you should watch the episode "Blink" right now. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1000252/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
Some of my favorite horror movies are the original Chainsaw Massacre, Blair witch project and The Evil Dead. What do they have in common? They leave a lot to your own imagination. You get bits and pieces of explanation but they never give too much. They let you fill in most of the blanks. Lights out wants to explain all of it and centers the whole story about that explanation. In that way they miss the thing that made the concept so good. The fear of the dark and the fear of the unknown. When they take that from us we're left with jumpscares and predictable story lines.