With each flicker of darkness we see the silhouette get closer and closer…
This past summer was a great one for the horror genre, and one of the gems that hit the big screen was director David F. Sandberg’s Lights Out. Clever, spooky, and armed with a surprising amount of emotional depth – in his review, Trace Thurman called the film a “frightening study of mental illness” – Sandberg’s feature debut was one of this year’s pleasant surprises.
The film was based on Sandberg’s same-named short from 2013, which quickly went viral here on the internet, and if you dug it as much as we did, you might be interested in reading the director’s original 17-page treatment. Sandberg (@PonySmasher) shared the treatment over on Twitter this week, and included with it a creepy woodcut image he made of villain Diana.
As Sandberg noted, “A lot changed but a lot also stayed the same,” and the most interesting change from treatment to screen was in regards to the ending. In the film’s somewhat controversial finale, Sophie (Maria Bello) kills herself to rid her family of the demon attached to her, but in Sandberg’s treatment, it’s actually a police officer who accidentally shoots Sophie. Furthermore, Diana – a demon who feeds on grief and is essentially a physical manifestation of depression – attaches itself to Sophie’s young son Martin, possessing him much like Sophie herself.
Click the link to check out the original Lights Out treatment!
In the film:
When her little brother, Martin, experiences the same events that once tested her sanity, Rebecca works to unlock the truth behind the terror, which brings her face to face with an entity that has an attachment to their mother, Sophie.
