Lights Out (short)

I was curious how a plot as complex as the movie Lights Out could be based on a short.  As it turns out, it  wasn’t.  The concept of a monster that only appears in the dark is here, but the themes and characters of that movie are completely absent.  Even the rules are fundamentally different.

That’s not to say that either version is bad.  In the right hands the same general concept can be used to produce two wildly different products of good quality.  That’s exactly what happened here.  This is a short that makes my skin crawl.

The idea here is something we can all relate to: You turn out a light, and see something you can’t recognize in the dark, so you turn the light back on to see what it is.  Our main character (Lotta Losten) turns out the lights in her hall, and sees a human shape.  However, when she turns the lights back on, there’s no object there to explain what it might have been.  After several rounds of this, the figure moves closer.

The woman decides to simply tape the light switch open, and go to bed.  However, after a few moments in bed the lights in the hall go off again, and footsteps run into the room.  The woman’s bed lamp is flickering, and she hides under her covers as she reaches for plug to try to keep the protective light on her.  Finally, she’s able to get the lamp working again, and sticks her head out, relaxed.

…and the Monster’s there.  There’s no credit for the monster, and it doesn’t move, so I assume it’s just a model.  It’s a thing with a basically human face, but white eyes, and a huge mouth.  The reveal is terrifying, but not simply for the monster.  It’s frightening because it shows us the established rules were wrong.

It’s hard to say why this flouting of usual movie conventions is so effective here.  It may only work because it’s a short.  However, it’s sometimes spoken like a mantra, “have consistent rules or you’ll break suspension of disbelief.”  Here, however, we realize that the rules were wrong, and the creature had failed to appear in the light prior to this moment by choice, not requirement.  The rug is pulled out from under us.

For a three-minute short, there’s only so much I can write, but check it out.  I mean, after all, it is just three minutes.