![]() We catch an early glimpse of her rising from the floor of a dimly lighted factory warehouse, where a man named Paul (Billy Burke), insufficiently grasping the rules of the movie’s premise, makes the mistake of venturing into the shadows and is promptly gutted before the opening credits. ![]() The light is crucial, not only because it keeps some of the characters alive but because without it the viewer could not see Diana herself, a shrieking, sharp-clawed silhouette played by the actress and stunt double Alicia Vela-Bailey. He and his cinematographer, Marc Spicer, cleverly modulate the levels of darkness in each frame, planting pools of light like small island oases in a pitch-black sea. Sandberg, who turns every room into a shadow-strewn obstacle course and places his characters at the mercy of unreliable battery-powered equipment. It’s a ground rule that calls forth no shortage of strategic ingenuity from the director, David F. Like a vampire exposed to sunlight, Diana can be scared off by a sudden burst of illumination - the beam of a flashlight, the glow of a neon sign or even the headlights of a parked car. ![]() ![]() Whenever the spirit, called Diana, finds herself in a murderous mood (which is rather often), the lights begin to flicker ominously, threatening to plunge her victims into the total darkness that is her preferred environment and hunting ground. Exploiting our fear of the dark is a trick as old as the movies themselves, but it’s hard to recall the last picture that took the idea to such literal-minded extremes as “Lights Out.” The tale of a restless evil spirit who suffers from an extreme aversion to light, this nifty little chiller may be the first movie of its kind to unite the pleasure of a good haunting with the horror of an unpaid electricity bill. ![]()
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