Review: Lights Out

Lights Out
Cert: 15 / 81 mins / Dir. David F. Sandberg / Trailer

Act I: "What, me? Oh, I'm just working late and alone in a poorly-lit industrial unit full of mannequins on a deserted business-park. Yeah, I'm sure nothing could go wrong…"

A curiously late entry this far into the season for David Sandberg's Lights Out, this is a strict 'genre-flick'. Based on his short film by the same name, I have - to be brutally fair - seen vintage steam engines that were less mechanical. That's not to say it's an inherently bad film, but it feels like someone's done a paint-by-numbers horror movie, and just ended up using black for most of the colours, anyway. A surprisingly capable cast cruise through this tale of a traumatised woman and her mildly dysfunctional family, as they're plagued by a creature known as Diana, who exists only in the darkness and has a penchant for destroying the light.

This is a very efficiently made movie, but the scares are overly-telegraphed and the plot unfurls itself without building up the tension required for any kind of reveal (although at a lean 81 minutes, there really isn't time for holding anything back). As far as the writing goes, the screenplay uses mental illness and a primal fear of the dark as a clever analogy for mental illness and a primal fear of the dark. Yeah.

Act II: "Oh, I seem to have conveniently stumbled across an old filing-box full of photographs, case notes and an audio-recording of the time when our nemesis was a patient in a psychiatric unit. Well now that mystery's fully unravelled, I'm sure nothing could go wrong…"

Credit where it's completely due though, the premise of Lights Out means the film's budget is used excellently, with the most tense scenes relying on little more than lighting-states and acting. Because when your antagonist only appears in silhouette, you can achieve a hell of a lot with a hell of a little. The make-up box is broken out for the climactic showdown, but the film's earned it by that point. In fact, the fundamentals of lighting and acting are executed so well that it underlines how much they're propping up the pick'n'mix screenplay.

Teresa Palmer heads up the cast as a Movie Metaller*¹ who has to deal with the recurring trauma of her mother and protection of her younger brother, played by Gabriel Bateman (who's still young enough to play all this shit with a straight face and not look bored with his lines, unlike the rest of the cast). Still, it's no relief to realise that after two thudding Silent Hill movies, Maria Bello's role in Lights Out as the scared/bewildered/psychotic mother means that her career hasn't moved on a single iota.

Act III: "Well, I guess I'll just have to venture alone down into this cellar to restore the power and lighting we so desperately need. I have a completely non-brittle UV tube with me though, so I'm sure nothing could go wrong…"

I think my favourite aspect is that a character dies in the first five minutes (a character who knows the film's three central characters and is shown to be in regular contact with at least one of them), and nobody even notices until about two minutes before the end. Which in plot-time is about two whole days.

Bulletproof, Dave; bulletproof…



All Of The Horror™.



Not particularly.



Not particularly.



I should hope not.



Doubtful.



There isn't.



Level 2: Lights Out features Andi Osho, who appeared in three episodes of Holby City back in 2012 which also starred Hugh 'Panaka' Quarshie.




*¹ The kind of Metaller who's Demonstrably Metal™ because she a) wears black-mesh tops, b) lives in a flat above a tattoo-parlour and c) has an Avenged Sevenfold poster blu-tacked at an unconventional angle in her largely mainstream flat. I think there's supposed to be some subtext that because she had some poorly-explained childhood trauma, this turned her All Metal™. But it's that kind of Metal™ where someone appears to have ram-raided Hot Topic before borrowing Trivium's greatest hits, rather than adopting any kind of alternative ethos at all…


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: The 5th Wave

The 5th Wave
Cert: 15 / 112 mins / Dir. J Blakeson / Trailer



Because if an Oscar-winning actress like Jennifer Lawrence can cash cheques from YA cine-franchises, then there's no harm or shame in a talent like Chloë Grace Moretz following suit, right? An alien invasion (in the form of effects-budget-friendly body-inhabiters) sees Chloë star as Cassie, a normal teenage girl in a crisis situation, trying to be reunited with her younger brother as society collapses around them and Earth's last line of defence against a series of quasi-biblical plagues designed to wipe out humanity. She gets to watch a hot guy washing down his chest in a river, too, which I think is meant to represent hormones, or something.

Credit where it's due, The 5th Wave is a far better teen-adventure flick than it is a survival thriller (that's right Evan, if you're ever on the run, just start an open fire in unlit woodland at night, that won't give away your position in about a second). Because yeah, seasoned veterans of The Walking Dead (*raises hand*) will take issue with some of the strategic techniques used, and the story's "twists" are telegraphed from the first fifteen minutes of the film. All you can do after that is at least enjoy the movie for what it is.

It's an entertaining enough ride and certainly earnestly acted (although too much so, in the case of Maika Monroe) but there's no real depth to any of what we see (y'know, the extinction of humanity) and any message or subtext which manages to slip through the net of one author and three screenwriters is neither new nor unique, sadly. The 15 certificate certainly helps the tone of the film, but at its heart, this is a 12A (not that there's anything wrong with that at all).

You know Cassie's going to be alright in the end though, since the first act shows the 16yr old girl firing a Colt .45 for the first time using only one hand, and absorbing all signs of recoil effortlessly. That's survival skills, right there. And of course, no Sony movie would be complete without the obligatory product placement (this time for a cell-phone which the screenplay has already told us won't work again for the rest of the film), but we also get a couple of separate Spider-Man references, too. Y'know, in case you thought the studio had lost the web-slinger.

All things considered, human civilisation in The 5th Wave seems to be taking the unannounced arrival of an alien spacecraft and subsequent genocide of their species quite pragmatically; in any other invasion flick, it'd be absolute bedlam from day one. Although we only really see it affecting Ohio, so maybe they're all a bit more relaxed about the whole thing.

But hey, grumbles aside The 5th Wave is still better than Independence Day. And it's better than Skyline.

Although being stabbed repeatedly in the shins with a rusty cake-fork is better than Skyline…

I Am Number Four, How I Live Now.



Being shoved out at the end of January into not many cinemas, you might be lucky if you can find it (I only caught the film because I was in London).



Oh, probably.



It isn't.



I won't.



I didn't hear one.



Level 2: The 5th Wave stars that Liev Schreiber, who appeared in The Butler, as did David 'Kallus' Oyelowo.







DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.