Lits OUT!

This is that movie that was based on that short.

A family are slowly being destroyed by the mother's friend. Where the friend, in this case, is a strange supernatural beast that only exists in darkness. [I have some issues with the nature of the creature, which is explained, with the question of just how much ambient light is needed to vanish her, what with photons all over the place...] The set up of this creature is pretty good, and the story works well when it is dealing with the possibility of it. However... inevitably it comes down to fighting the creature, and at that point it becomes just like any other creature feature. Okay, the final method of dealing with the creature is different (and thankfully they deleted the final scene), but the fighting the creature just didn't feel new.

Horror movies are hard. You can set up great premises, like here. But eventually it comes down to "we must defeat the creature because this is that sort of movie", and which point the creature suddenly has all sorts of vulnerabilities that can be exploited. (There are a few movies where the creature isn't even slightly defeated/fought, but it would be spoilers to mention the names.) This is definitely "oh, that's what the creature is like" that I lost a lot of interest when it was given away. Also there were many moments in the script that were set up as tense, but I knew exactly what was going to be revealed. The unusual monster is largely all this movie has going for it.

Which it plays well, and I don't feel like this movie was too long/short, which is good. I'm just hoping it won't be milked into a franch... it's already made over ten times its budget back, okay look out for the second one next year!

[END]