Lights Out - Short Film (Analysed)

"Lights Out" is a very short horror film that centres it's story around the commonly know fear of the darkness.

The film-makers excellently opened audiences to the mythological and rules behind the supernatural threat within this story as the character within the narrative uncovers it for the first time; acting as the audiences window into this world. The director utilises lighting and shadows to present the story's antagonist within the darkness, a clever technique as the entity is visible only within the darkness but lacks any real identity due to the outline of the character can only be seen. This makes the threat for more horrifying as both the character and the audience's perception of the entity is amplified due to the fear of the unknown is far worse as the antagonist's appearance is left to the imagination.

However, this film-makers contradicts their initial notion of the fear of the known towards the last act; the identity of the supernatural entity is revealed and despite the shock of it yes striking fear into the audience, I found that the horrific concept of not knowing the identity of the threat was far more terrifying as this led to great build of tension as the camera uses wide angles and close ups to limit the visibility of the entity as the director was very selective as to what could be seen.

I found the overall execution of the media product very engaging and was pleased with the director's decisions to a point as he then contradicted himself and took the story in a direction that didn't seem logical to the story.