Teresa Palmer (Warm Bodies) stars in a new genre work from the producers of Insidious that borrows liberally from the modern horror cannon. Read on to see if Lights Out brings out quality scares in the dark.

We are at a point now in modern genre film where it seems to me as a viewer that filmmakers and producers are banking on new audiences not being too familiar with older horror films. Familiar tropes from films in the 1980’s and even earlier are being regurgitated on the screen with all too frequently now; the thinking being its new to this crowd, so why not? Its in this current milieu that Lights Out makes its bow. The film opens up with a scene featuring Twilight’s Billy Burke working a night shift at a dark and shadowy mannequin factory. He takes a call establishing he has a wife and child and already we know something is bound to happen to interfere with that. No later than 5 minutes in we get a cold open where Burke’s character goes full Marion Crane ala Psycho. Our would be protagonist is dead and we now meet the daughter of his widow Sophie (Mario Bello) from a previous relationship, Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) is a stereotypical movie “alt girl” with posters from bands like Slayer and Ghost and DC’s Vertigo comics littering her room. She has intimacy and commitment issues; not even allowing her would-be boyfriend to stash a sock at her place, lest it create some sort of stability that might be broken. This is because her mother Sophie seems to be suffering from mental illness that has alienated her family from her and caused CPS and the local school authorities to become worried about her brother Martin, who is falling asleep in class and can’t sleep at home because of “Diana.” Diana being her mother’s imaginary friend who seems to only come out in the shadows and the dark and wants Sophie all to herself. Is Diana real, or only in Sophie’s mind and what impact does this have on her children? This would seem to be an interesting proposition to explore the paranormal and mental illness, but instead Lights Out quickly tips its hand to let us know Diana is real and only wants Sophie for herself.

It isn’t too surprising to say that Lights Out borrows heavily from films like The Babadook, It Follows, and especially Insidious given its production team. Once the films gets going, the connections are so prominent I half expected this to be an Insidious spin-off. But for fans of those films, Lights Out treads on all too familiar territory while also being heavily influenced by films such as Wes Craven’s Shocker and A Nightmare on Elm Street. If you’re looking for a film full of jump scares that is a lot like a lot of recent horror and you haven’t seen a lot of 80’s slashers, this would probably be right up your alley. For this reviewer, the inconsistent rules regarding Diana (it can be hurt by regular light but not black lights for some reason), along with the languid nature of the film’s pacing, high level of WB product placement, and lack of interesting protagonists make Lights Out one for a DVD rental night.