One of the props we see in the first scene of Lights Out is a magnifying glass.
This was before Things You Missed existed, but it could be a little hint to the audience
that they might be rewarded if they take a closer look at some of those smaller details.
Details like this little figurine version of the antagonist of the short film Lights
Out.
The 2016 Lights Out is an adaptation of David Sandberg’s 2013 short film created for the
Who’s There Short Film Challenge, at the end of which, this happens.
In fact, the opening of the feature film is almost like a large-scale recreation of the
original short, using the same concept of creating suspense while switching between
light and darkness.
It also features a cameo from the star of the short film, Lotta Losten, Sandberg’s
wife who is also referenced in a deleted scene.
She has appeared in all of Sandberg’s films, some of which are teased at with other connections
in Lights Out.
Stick around to the end of this video to hear about them.
Welcome to Things You Missed.
After submitting his short film Lights Out and uploading it to the Ponysmasher YouTube
channel in December 2013, David Sandberg was awarded Best Director, and the video gained
significant traction on YouTube to the tune of 9 million views by June 2015.
The Swedish couple was contacted by several agents and producers including this guy, Lawrence
Grey, who wanted to turn it into a major motion picture produced by James Wan, which probably
explains the abundance of mannequins.
As we know, Wan loves his mannequins.
I had the opportunity to see Lights Out early at VidCon 2016, which was especially inspiring
because Ponysmasher had ridden the YouTube wave to the Hollywood director’s chair,
which is exactly what I wanted to do.
It was also one of the best movie watching experiences because the audience was just so into
it.
Surprisingly, considering it was a room full of creators, I think I was the only
one who actually filmed anything from the Q&A.
“Can you tell us what it was like when that call came in from Hollywood?”
“Well it was like 3 days after it went viral, and I know the second day, a film festival
from Glasgow called us and asked us if they could show Lights Out at a horror festival
there, and we said, ‘Wow!
Yeah.
This is so cool.
We need to go to Glasgow now!
This is our break!’
And then the day after that, Hollywood called, so it’s like, ‘Well, maybe skip Glasgow
and go straight to Hollywood.’”
Let’s get into the Things You Missed.
As Paul is Air Yeeted
into the darkness, we transition into the title card, which uses
the very same logo created for the original short, that now has lighting applied to it.
As the logo recedes into the dark, we see two small glints of light, which represent
the glowing eyes of the antagonist, Diana.
“One of the problems with shooting silhouettes is you can’t tell which was the person’s
turned, or where the person’s looking.
For that, and just for the creep factor, I wanted our creature to have eyes that reflected
light.
Kind of like a cat.”
From the logo we go straight into the room of our protagonist, Rebecca, and the first
thing we see is this poster, which kind of represents a cartoon version of Diana.
Another poster in her room is this band poster for Slackt, which is a Swedish metal band,
and you may remember David and Lotta came over from Sweden.
There might also be a deeper meaning here.
On IMDb there’s this trivia point that says Släckt is Swedish for extinguish, and to
extinguish the lights is basically to turn the lights out.
Later on we also see another Swedish metal band poster for the band: Ghost.
You could say that Diana is kind of like a ghost in a way.
She certainly has ghost-like properties, such as disappearing in the light.
There’s also an Avenged Sevenfold poster in her apartment for their 2013 album Hail
to the King.
Twenty-thirteen is when the Lights Out short was released, but I can’t help but feel
it would have been better to put something related to their 2001 song, Darkness Surrounding.
The next character we meet is Rebecca’s half brother, Martin, who is seen wearing
a Batman shirt and also has a Robin figurine, a couple of Justice League posters and even
some Batman pajamas.
Now this could just be the studio, Warner Bros, trying to promote their IP, but it also might
also be a sign that the director is a bit of a DC comic fan himself.
Afterall, he would go on to direct Shazam as his third feature film in 2019.
There’s also sort of a connection to his second movie, Annabelle Creation, which came
out in 2017, because the name of Martin’s school is Palmeri Elementary.
As you may know, I’ve already covered the Annabelle films here on Things You Missed,
and in the Annabelle Creation episode I mentioned the easter egg: Palmeri’s Toy Shop, which
I connected to the first Annabelle film where we see the Palmeri Apartments.
But the name Palmeri Elementary in Lights Out doesn’t necessarily mean that Ponysmasher
predicted the future, he actually ended up clarifying in the comments that the name Palmeri
is actually a reference to a woman named Victoria Palmeri who works at New Line.
I also want to thank David for going back in time and adding the letters CZ to the eye
chart right here.
I made it!
I finally made it in Hollywood!
But speaking of connections with his other films, there’s one major theme that has
come up in each of them so far, and that is foster care.
In Lights Out, Martin’s parents are taken out by Diana, forcing him to live with his
half-sister.
There’s even an alternate ending where she officially becomes a foster parent.
“You are now a foster parent.”
And if you’ve seen his other movies, they both take place in foster homes.
There are also similar ideas that Rebecca has to deal with.
She has abandonment issues because of her father abandoning her and her mother when
she was a kid.
That’s why she’s hesitant to make things official with the guy she’s been seeing,
Bret.
She’s afraid she’ll get attached and he’ll also abandon her.
She won’t let him stay over, leave anything at her place or meet her mother.
Bret defies her expectations by staying with her even after seeing how disturbing her family
life is.
Part of her character arc is her learning to appreciate him as more than a friend with
benefits.
There’s even a moment when he goes to pick up food for them, and while he’s gone, there’s
a knock on the door.
In an alternate take found in the deleted scenes, she simply says, it’s Bret.
“That would be Bret.”
But the take used in the movie does a better job of saying something about her character
at that point, where she just sees him as the guy bringing her food.
“OK. It’s the food.”
But he’s actually kind of like the biggest champ in any movie probably, and even after
it appears that he’s running for it, he’s actually going to get help from the police.
Maybe one of the most telling parts about Bret’s character is how he supports Rebecca
even through her investigations of her mother’s past with Diana at the mental hospital, where
we’ll find even more Things You Missed.
As I mentioned earlier in the video, Lights Out was produced by genre veteran, James Wan.
In music and video games, the producer is always very creatively involved, but the involvement
of a producer in a movie can vary.
However, it seems that Wan did actually offer some creative ideas for Lights Out.
“On the day we were shooting it, James Wan was on the set and he came up with this idea
of having two Dianas in this one long unbroken shot."
I couldn’t help but notice that Rebecca’s apartment shares a very big similarity to
the motel James Wan’s 2007 movie, Dead Silence, where a flashing sign from the street fills
the area with a red light that goes on and off, giving glimpses of the movie’s antagonist.
Coincidence, homage, or idea from James Wan himself, we may never know.
Unless David tells us in the comments.
Rebecca discovers a box of old files from Mulberry Hill, the mental hospital where her
Mom first met Diana.
This was teased at earlier on in the opening, when we saw Paul holding his wife’s file
from Mulberry Hill, describing the damage that Diana presumably placed on her.
There seem to be many examples of Diana attacking the other patients.
Rebecca listens to an audio tape recorded by Sophie’s doctor, who is voiced by David
Sandberg.
“Patient 283, admitted October 6 1984.
The patient suffers from a unique skin disorder that manifests itself in an extreme sensitivity
to light.”
There’s also an article that she discovers about the light therapy treatment tested on
Diana, and at the bottom, it’s cut off but we can see that the chief of staff at Mulberry
is a Dr. Sand… something.
I’m assuming that might say Sandberg.
But I guess it could be Sandman.
Sandman was another DC Comics character, and it looks like Rebecca has a couple volumes
in her apartment.
After attempting to stay over at Rebecca’s house, child services puts Martin back with
his Mother, and together they watch the 1958 film, Auntie Mame.
Which I have not seen, but I looked it up, and yeah... that’s what movie it is.
But the interesting part is what line we hear from that movie.
“Child, how can you see with all that light?
Ahh, now that's better."
Again, haven’t seen the movie, but it sounds like she doesn’t like the light, much like
Diana from this movie.
This ties into the idea that Diana represents Sophie’s depression and mental illness.
You often hear someone who is depressed say that they’re in a dark place.
But I will cover that more when in Diana’s episode of Horror History.
They all prepare the house for the night to keep themselves in the light and safe from
Diana.
One of the tactics they use is putting tape over the lightswitch, which is another reference
to the short film, and which is of course, also on the poster.
There would be one more reference to the short later, when Rebecca and Martin are locked
in the basement and Martin goes through the box of Halloween decorations to try to find
a light.
There’s a mask in there with the same white glazey eyes as the monster in the short film.
Meanwhile, Bret is upstairs trying to save them, but he gets attacked by Diana, and buys
himself some time by shining his phone light, and we briefly see his phone background, which features
the words “Scare Assault”.
Which seems like a band name or something, but it’s not any band I’m familiar with.
He also seems to have a Scare Assault phone case.
In any event, I think we can all consider this movie a “Scare Assault” considering
all the scares in it,
and there are some awesome techniques used in the finale, like Bret using
his car keys to shine the light on Diana, and the muzzle flashes from the police guns
making her disappear momentarily.
That’s all the Things You Missed that actually made it into the movie, but there are a couple
things I noticed in the deleted scenes as well, so I’ll just mention those quickly.
In the same article that I mentioned that was written by Lotta,
it mentions a police officer named Eric Heisserer,
which is the name of the screenwriter for Lights Out.
There’s also a reference to art director Shannon Kemp, who likely named the Kemp Apartments
in reference to her own last name.
Diana is one of the best original horror movie villains in recent years, so join me next
week as I analyse the entire history of Diana Walter in the next episode of Horror History.
Remember to subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring that deathbell for
notifications and I’ll see you in the next one.
Assuming we stay inside.