Lights Out

Hey little friends. How’s it going?

So I’m coming in hot on this Friday, and wanted to tell you I broke out into a stress rash yesterday while bidding on an item on the local auction site.

Don’t you just love that stuff? Local buying and selling sites are the great equalizer, I think. Like riding the bus but somehow more and also less horrifying all at once.

Make sense? Yeah.. me either.

Anyways, last night I took my main bitch and my sidepiece Rigby on a date to go see Lights Out. Now. I saw the trailer for this a while ago and I assumed it would be unwatchable garbage. Look, you guys, I’m really old. I stagger around with my cane and have one of those olde timey ear horns, and recently I was so touched when someone bought me an IKEA cheese grater. Like. I’m so old.

In my many years of my Methuselian existence, I’ve seen so many horror movies. So many. I have a library that documents a staggering number of these films and I like to think that like combat fighters, I’ve become so desensitized to the routine of new films, that it barely even registers for me anymore.

Truthfully, I’m not trying to bitch or make myself sound all cool, it’s just that what scares the average film goer is usually barely registered on my radar as a fart.

Anywho.. I actually liked Lights Out. It had some gimmicks that were neat and it didn’t stray into the long drawn out 2hrs+ that the Conjuring 2 did. Holy shit was the Conjuring 2 just so bad. Man. Oh also, for Lights Out, when we were leaving this bro dude, like totally muscle bound gym rat type who probably drinks horse testosterone had to be talked down by his equally stupid looking girlfriend because he had been so frightened by the film.

As we left, his girlfriend was like, “babe its fine, it’s just because its dark and stuff pops out.. thats how they scare you”. Sure is, trashy blonde. Sure is.

Anyways, join me for a jaunt and let’s read about Lights Out.

So the plot of Lights Out is that a babely kinda alternative girl Rebecca is banging this dude that looks like a shitty rip off of any member of Maroon 5 or the Killers and he’s all.. well.. he’s a stage 5 clinger. He’s all can I hang out at your house and like maybe move in?

And babely goth is all, no, I don’t think so. Take your novelty striped socks and GTFO. Thanks for the 4AM dicking.

What’s important to note here, is that in other horror films, this role is reversed in terms of gender. Troubled brooding dude and his clingy girlfriend.

I appreciated that the female version of the fuck and chuck was portrayed so succintly.

Cause, let’s be real here.. In the words of George Carlin, “Ladies, wouldn’t you like a nice set of cock and balls without all the bullshit that comes with it?”

Anywho, troubled goth girl is like 30 and she has a super little brother who is like.. 6? I dunno. Point of it all is that mom has been watching some of those crazy breeding videos on pornhub and there’s a great age gap between these two siblings.

Mom’s a ho.

Anyways, following the disappearance of her husband, and the previous disappearance of her other husband, Mom is also somewhat touched in the head. She’s manic depressive and can’t seem to stay on her meds.

In the darkness, Mom appears to be haunted a tall shadowy figure and the figure’s prescence is obviously fucking up her six year son and so CPS steps in when he’s constantly falling asleep in home room, you know, because he’s up all night cradling a flashlight/descending into madness.

Troubled goth sister steps in and takes her tiny little bro for a sleepover and her little bro mentions being haunted by “Diana” and we are treated to some flashbacks about how this sister was also visited by this figure and that this is her major motivation for leaving the family home. I mean, who can blame her, right? Family stuff and all.

So Diana shows up at the goth girls house, carves her name into the floor and is all DO NOT FUCK WITH ME.

K, unpopular opinion time, but I actually liked the Diana gimmick, in that she disappeared with any light, and theres a cool bit in here where theres a neon sign flashing outside and Diana reappears and disappears with the flashes. I liked it.

Though this film does boast a reaosnable run time of under 90 minutes, there are points where it gets a bit mired in dragging it’s feet. It’s not the end of the world, but if the film had been longer, I would have started checking my watch.

As big sis and little bro realize they are both being tormented by the same creature of the night, big sis does some research and finds out that Diana was actually a Sadako esque grudge type girl that dear old mom was in the psych ward with.

Diana had a rare skin condition and was super sensitive to all lights and was said to be “Evil”. hahaha, sure.

That picture up there is essentially a picture of me and Rigby. It really is.

Anyways, during an experimental procedure/tanning booth session, Diana ends up disappearing and word on the street is she was banished to the shadow realm and thats where she’s been chilling out.

At points we start feeling the dialogue to be blurred a little bit on whether Diana is simply a figment of the mother’s deranged mind, or if she’s real.. etc.

Big sis and little bro and the dude from Maroon 5 go and hang out at Mom’s house and find that Mom is chilling with Diana and Mom gets all butthurt when they’re like hey can you take your antidepressants, hose yourself off and stop talking to the dead.

Everyone decides to sleep over which is cool I guess but Diana gets pissed and starts throwing people.

She ends up trapping big sis and little bro in her basement shadow realm and they find an old ass black light and end up checking out her crazed shadow realm.

As to where a ghost found great quantities of UV paint is anyone’s guess.

Like… I don’t wanna ruin the surprise for you, but the entire third act is pretty well filmed inside a tanning bed.

Anywho, Diana is mad IRL, and when it comes time to face off with Daughter, Mom and Diana, Mom tries to shoot Diana but since she’s dead it doesn’t do anything and Mom ends up putting the gun to her head and blowing her own fucking brains out.

Diana disappears.

Mental illness, am i right?

I’m glad that the movie ended this way because that’s not always seen so readily in the Hollywood horror tropes, you know?

That decidedly very unhappy ending. If nothing else, this movie kept me guessing a little bit. I liked that it tried some new territory. I mean let’s not go nuts, it’s still a pretty safe horror movie, but for a fun summer horror, I enjoyed it.

I will probably purchase a copy when it comes out, for sure.