Adapting a short film into a full-length feature can prove to be a troubling task. All too frequently, there just isn’t enough material to mine out of the short film to stretch out into a 90-minute film. Or the creator/director can be too close to his/her original product and be unwilling to make necessary changes to the original concept. Luckily for us, screenwriter Eric Heisserer (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Final Destination 5) and director David S. Sandberg proved up to the task when adapting Sandberg’s 2013 short film Lights Out. The final product is a taut, competently made and wonderfully acted horror film that wisely pairs supernatural horror with the very real horror of mental illness, adding a certain amount depth not seen in many mainstream horror films.

After his father (Billy Burke) is murdered, Martin (Gabriel Bateman, Annabelle) repeatedly sees the same ghostly apparition around his house. This apparition, named Diana, is only visible in the dark and has a direct link to his clinically depressed mother Sophie (Maria Bello, A History of Violence, Assault on Precinct 13). When Martin begins falling asleep in school, Child Protective Services gets involved, as does his sister Rebecca (Teresa Palmer, Warm Bodies) who left home years ago to escape Sophie. With the help of her boyfriend Bret (Alexander DiPersia), Rebecca seeks a way to uncover the mystery behind Diana and rid the world of her before she is able to hurt Martin.

Performances are strong across the board, especially those from Palmer and Bello who really do look like mother and daughter. Bello’s anguish over her mental illness is palpable in every scene she is in, and Palmer proves to be up to the challenge of matching her beat for beat. The real MVP here is Bateman, who is one of the best child actors I’ve seen in recent memory. He is tasked with spending the majority of the film wide-eyed with terror, and he sells it incredibly well. He also doesn’t fall into many of the tropes you usually see with child characters in horror films.

Lights Out runs an all-too-brief 81 minutes (including credits), which is both a positive and a negative. On the plus side, the film moves at a brisk pace that never dwells on any plot point too long. You won’t find time spent on a miscommunication between Rebecca and her boyfriend or unnecessary scenes where no one believes Gabriel and Teresa about Diana’s threat. This is a film with a mission and it accomplishes that mission successfully. That being said, the third act of the film does feel a little rushed and the big battle is over before its even begun.  While it is suspenseful, it would have behooved the film to hold certain moments just a bit longer or take more time during certain scenes, specifically those involving the relationship between Rebecca and Diana. You get a clear sense of their relationship, but you want to see more of it. In that respect, the film can be viewed as a success. It’s always better to leave you wanting more.

Linking Diana to Sophie’s depression is a wise decision and is the most fascinating aspect of the film, but the short length of the feature prevents the film from delving into it beyond a surface level analysis. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but one wonders what it would have been like had it been written more as a psychological drama that happened to have a ghost in it as opposed to a supernatural horror film that happens to have dramatic elements. The former wouldn’t have been as marketable though, so it’s easy to see why they went this route.

Lights Out is the most commercial film that could have come out of this premise. It is sure to be a crowd-pleaser. The scares are the main focus here, and they mostly work. By the end of the film you will become numb to Diana’s presence as the majority of the scares consist of her suddenly appearing when the lights go out. That being said, the jump scares don’t feel as cheap as they normally would in the hands of a lesser director. Sandberg finds many creative ways to utilize the gimmick (a sequence involving the flash of a gunshot comes to mind) that are sure to keep you intrigued all the way until the credits. On the writing side of things, Heisserer is commendable for avoiding many of your standard horror clichés, though Lights Out does feature another appearance of an inept police force that induces more eye-rolls than fear.

Lights Out is a fun little film with a nice amount of depth that you don’t usually find in many mainstream horror films nowadays. Though the scares become repetitive after a certain point, the film never ceases to keep you engaged. It boasts strong performances and a novel concept that lends itself to clever, if sometimes obvious, scares. It’s certainly better than other films that have used the same gimmick (see: Darkness Falls, Darkness). At the very least, it is impressive that a film of its kind is even seeing a wide release, and for that we should all be thankful.