12/17/2023 0 Comments Watch lights out 2016 movie![]() ![]() It’s the exact clumsy hand you’d expect in a Hollywood horror on such a delicate topic, but without any other discernible entertainment value present to distract you from the problem. The images of a depressed woman’s home life as well as her distant past in a mental institution feel horrifically outdated & clichéd in an entirely stigmatizing, unrelatable way, especially in light of recent, empathetic works like Gabriel& I Smile Back. The depression demon that haunts the household is given the physical form of Diana, a “childhood friend” (translation: lifelong illness) of the mother’s with severe light sensitivity and a jealous rage that threatens the physical & spiritual safety of anyone who dares to love her best bud. The curtains are drawn the mother is holed up & babbling to herself her youngest child is too scared to sleep. The estranged daughter returns home to find her mother in a manic state, the same as she was when she was a kid. This one step removal from the crisis at hand does little but deflate the emotional impact of the mother’s struggle (by making her look abusive & downright feral from an outsider’s perspective) and to clear room for a completely besides the point romance with another goth rock knucklehead it takes a significant amount of effort to merely tolerate. Instead of following the story of the people who suffer the most in this mental health horror (the depressed woman & the young son under her care), Lights Out finds its audience surrogate in the boy’s older goth rock sister who no longer lives at home. Both cover the same territory, but only one is worth watching. Both are blatant in their shared metaphor, but only one handles it with any semblance of compassion or nuance. ![]() Both movies represent depression as a monster made of pure darkness, but only one is visually interesting or at all unique in its specificity. In The Babadook we empathize with a woman who finds herself uncontrollably annoyed by her own child Lights Out shifts to the child’s POV, making the mother seem like a heartlessly selfish brute. ![]() While The Babadook follows a mother as she struggles with her own mental health, Lights Out instead takes a distant, almost vilifying look at the same struggle. Lights Out, by comparison, is a grotesquely Hollywood take on the same metaphor. Its delicate conclusion suggests that there are no simple solutions to clinical depression or whatever other monsters haunt our personal relationships, mental illness or otherwise. (Also, you are ridiculous.) The Babadook was a wonderfully written & performed depiction of severe depression and how it can affect parenting, one filtered through a demonic metaphor that both terrifies & inspires sincere reflection. ![]() When you were watching The Babadook, our favorite horror film of 2014, did you find yourself wishing that the film was tasteless, lifeless, and dismally formulaic? If yes, then you are going to love Lights Out. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |