Friday Horror Short 12, Lights Out

BLOT: (21 Mar 2014 - 09:32:56 PM)

Friday Horror Short 12, Lights Out

It starts off almost comical. A woman, alone in an apartment late at night, is getting ready for bed and turns out the lights. She sees a shape in the end of the hall. So she turns the lights back on. Then off. Then on. Then off. Then on. Then the thing gets closer, and she tapes the light switch to the on position. The humor dwindles, though, when she is in bed, later, and something starts moving in the hall, and the lamp in the room she is in starts flickering.

Like in several other horror shorts, the single female in an apartment at night in David Sandberg's "Lights Out" represents a moment of vulnerability, tied into the natural disquietude of the sounds right outside of hearing, and sights right outside of clarity. Also like nearly every other short I've seen in the strangely specific but well-represented "females in apartments when something weird happens" short film subgenre, the ending is a little bit of a bit-too-much. However, Sandberg justifies the whole thing by making the trip the terrifying bit. He does this, in part, by having two senses (hearing and sight) teased, and also by having Lotta Losten (originally wasn't sure about this, but yes it's her, and apologies for misspelling her name!) play the role in a near-comical, all-honest, everyman sort of way. Kind of like watching David Mitchell being eaten by zombies, you can feel it all the better for understanding what he is going through.