CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Neil Welch Young Martin lives with mum Sophie. Dad was recently brutally murdered, and adult half-sister Rebecca moved out ages ago. Mum (who has struggled with depression since childhood) appears to talk regularly with someone who isn't actually there. But we have seen some sort of creature which dwells only in darkness - put on the light and it is gone.This horror film gives us a new and intriguing monster. Reminiscent of Doctor Who's Weeping Angels, this entity appears to exist only in darkness: flood it with light, and it is gone. Gradually we uncover the backstory between Sophie and childhood friend Diana, and how it impinges on the horror the family is going through.The story is fun, though not wholly convincing (the effect of light is inconsistent: sometimes the entity appears to disappear, sometime it appears to become invisible but it's still there, and sometimes it is visible and the light blisters it. And what exactly happened to Diana to create this entity, and how does the link with Sophie work?). More to the point, I thought the relationships between Sophie (Maria Bello), Martin (Gabriel Bateman), Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) and Rebecca's boyfriend Bret (Alexander DiPersia) were credible, well-written, and very well performed. We were given characters who were real people: we cared, and hoped they could survive their ordeal. It is unusual to find such well-realised characters in a horror film.The film was visually effective, with the lights on/lights off moments being particularly well done. There was an over-reliance on mad-you-jump sound hits - these weren't necessary because the basic set-up was scary enough on its own.I saw the resolution coming slightly ahead of time, but it worked well nevertheless. And I was particularly pleased that the movie didn't have a contrived shock additional ending tacked on at the very end.This is one of the better horror movies of recent years.

robbinn-354-691035 I didn't expect much from this movie. It seemed to go on forever on turning the light off and on again. The plot or the backstory of the entity is just plain stupid and takes a lot from the movie as it just ain't something you can accept is plausible.

Fallen Eye Being bloated is never a good thing, however, also being too short while not really delivering the full story, and/or the full story in a compelling way, is also not a good thing. Lights Out lost me with its weak story development, its pacing as well as its short running time.Nobody ever explains the full situation to Bret. Diana's story comes to light in a very dim fashion. Rebecca is busy calling here mother a "nutjob", while she knows exactly what she is going through, and what makes it especially worse, is how that was shown literally in the scene before that comment. Sure, perhaps she is in denial, however the film doesn't portray that very well about her. All she seems like is distant, walls up, closed in and impersonal.Also, Martin knew at his age that Diana was the cause of his father's death, yet Rebecca spent all her life, under the impression that her father just ran out on them, when she went through the very same ordeal Martin did. Okay sure, maybe she didn't click for whatever reason, but for her to inform her mother, as if she didn't know either, just raises some concerns.The movie cutting to post Paul's death without some kind of reference or anchor, was jarring. For a short while you find yourself asking, how long has he been dead? It feels like its been a day, but the film gives the impression that it has been much longer, maybe even years, but is it? Can it?Then there's Rebecca still opting to stay in the house, to try and save her mother, when she already knows that Diana cannot harm her, which renders the entire endeavour moot.Lights Out has issues, that aren't necessarily plot holes, but rather more disregarded and dismissed expositions, and at 1 hour 15 minutes, I guess something was always going to suffer.From there, as gorgeous as Teresa Palmer is, and my oh my she is a stunner, her performance in this film was subpar, while everybody else was somewhat forgettable. The horror bit of the film was satisfying enough however, though it felt a bit repeated since it occurred in the same manner throughout the film without evolving. 5.4/10.

Gavin Purtell 'Lights Out' is a semi-conventional haunted house film, with one person being haunted, but the rest of the family able to see the spirit/demon/ghost/whatever, rather than one of those movies where it's only visible to the kid. Good start, with the shadowy apparition offing Paul (Burke), who is Rebecca (Palmer)'s step-dad, Martin (Bateman)'s dad, and Sophie (Bello)'s husband. Turns out the thing can't appear or been seen in the light and lurks in the shadows...The film does a good job of introducing the characters, including Rebecca's boyfriend Brett (DiPersia), but also doesn't let too long go without any scares or tension. The beauty of the evil being in the shadows means that you're always looking behind characters or in the corners of every shot! The backstory of how Diana was Sophie's childhood friend emerges and goes some (but certainly not all) of the way to explaining the haunting.There's a decent body count, scares, tension and shocks throughout, a good score, and it doesn't overstay it's welcome. The ending is good and logical. All the actors, including the kid, are above average. One of the better horror films I've seen in a while - scary, without being too stupid or gory.