LIGHTS OUT(2016)

Title: Lights Out

Written by: Eric Heisserer (Story by David Sandberg)

Draft date: March 4, 2015 (with marked revisions)

LOGLINE

When a young woman estranged from her family discovers that her mentally ill mother's dangerous "imaginary friend" — a shadow entity that exists only in darkness — is terrorizing her eight-year-old half-brother, she must confront the supernatural force that haunted her own childhood before it destroys what remains of her family.

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Sub-genre: Supernatural Horror, Family Drama

Keywords: Female Protagonist, Supernatural, Family, Darkness, Mental Illness, Depression, Estranged Family, Sibling Bond, Foster Care, Entity, Light vs. Dark, Single Mother, Child in Peril, Urban Setting

MPA Rating: R (sustained intense horror violence, bloody imagery, language, brief drug paraphernalia)

Budget Tier: Low ($1M–$10M) — limited locations (house, apartment, warehouse, parking garage), small cast, practical creature/shadow effects with some VFX augmentation, contemporary setting, night shooting requirements.

Pages: 106

Time Period: Present over approximately 1–2 weeks, with brief flashbacks to the mid-1980s and mid-1990s.

Locations: Approximately 40% in a suburban family house (multiple rooms, basement with fireplace stove, must accommodate blackout conditions and practical fire effects), 25% in a small urban apartment (bedroom with exterior neon sign, living room, kitchen), 15% in a clothing warehouse and attached outlet mall corridor/parking garage (night, requires motion-sensor lighting rigs), 10% in a converted former mental hospital (now low-income apartments, includes file storage room), 10% misc. (grade school, residential street exteriors, SUV interiors). Nearly all interiors require controllable lighting for darkness-based horror sequences.

Lead: Female, early-to-mid 20s, likely Caucasian, Gothic/alternative appearance (tattoos, piercings, dark makeup) masking deep vulnerability; history of self-harm; estranged from her family but fiercely protective when provoked.

Comparables: The Babadook (2014) — maternal mental illness manifesting as a supernatural entity threatening a child; Insidious (2010) — family-under-siege supernatural horror with a specific paranormal mythology; Mama (2013) — possessive female entity with attachment to children; Poltergeist (1982) — family home invaded by malevolent force with escalating set pieces.

SYNOPSIS

PAUL (40s), a stressed clothing warehouse owner, talks on the phone about his wife SOPHIE's (40s) refusal to take her medication, mentioning her daughter REBECCA as a lost cause. His employee KEITH (20s) delivers inventory reports before leaving. Paul's desktop wallpaper shows his family: Sophie, and their son MARTIN (8). After hanging up, Paul locks up the warehouse and encounters a dark silhouette that appears only when lights are off and vanishes when illuminated. In the parking garage, the entity corners Paul using darkness, and he is killed.

REBECCA (20s), a tattooed, Goth-styled young woman living alone, sends her casual boyfriend BRET (20s) home after sex, refusing to let him keep even a sock at her place. Despite their eight-month relationship, she maintains emotional distance. When Martin's school calls because he keeps falling asleep in class, Rebecca picks him up and meets EMMA (30s), a Child Services worker assigned after Paul's recent death. Emma probes about Sophie's mental state. Rebecca takes Martin to Sophie's house, where Sophie — grieving, off her medication, and increasingly erratic — argues bitterly with Rebecca. Martin privately tells Rebecca that someone named "Diana" keeps visiting. The name triggers Rebecca's childhood memories: after her biological father left, Sophie went off her meds and began talking to an entity called Diana. Rebecca tells Martin Diana isn't real, but Martin is unconvinced. Rebecca takes Martin to her apartment over Sophie's protests.

At Rebecca's apartment that night, a shadow entity manifests — small at first, then growing taller — appearing only when the lights are off. Rebecca finds Martin sleeping in the bathtub with a flashlight. The next morning, Emma arrives and insists Rebecca cannot keep Martin without going through legal channels. After Emma returns Martin to Sophie, Rebecca discovers "DIANA" carved into her hardwood floor and recalls a childhood encounter where an unseen presence in her closet drew Diana's name on a sketch pad. She listens to Paul's unreturned voicemail about Sophie, then calls the detective on Paul's murder case, learning that Sophie herself may be under suspicion.

Rebecca retrieves an old photograph from Sophie's home office showing a woman named Diana at Mulberry Hill Rehab Hospital in 1986. She and Bret visit the location, now converted to apartments, where building manager LOUIS (Adult) lets them search abandoned patient files. Rebecca finds micro-cassette therapy recordings of Diana — a patient with an extreme light sensitivity — and an obituary revealing Diana died during light therapy in 1987, her body apparently combusting and leaving only a shadow. Rebecca realizes Diana's supernatural presence is linked to Sophie's untreated depression.

Martin endures a terrifying evening at home where Sophie, in a disturbed state, tries to introduce him to Diana in the dark. Diana's shadow looms over him before he drives her back with a flashlight and flees. He arrives at Rebecca's apartment. Rebecca shares her research: Diana was real, died decades ago, and resurfaces whenever Sophie stops her medication. Martin reveals that Paul was trying to get Sophie back on her meds when he was killed. Diana then manifests at the apartment, knocking from inside closets, taunting them. Rebecca, Martin, and Bret confront Sophie at her house. Sophie defends Diana as her friend and accuses Rebecca of trying to steal Martin. Rebecca declares Diana is dead. Sophie dismisses them and retreats upstairs.

Rebecca decides they will all stay overnight at Sophie's house. The trio fortifies the home: taping light switches, stashing flashlights, placing candles. That night, Diana kills the power and traps Rebecca and Martin in the basement by slamming and locking the door. Bret, outside checking the blackout, returns to find them locked in and is attacked by Diana — beaten and terrified, he flees in his SUV. In the basement, Diana stalks them as their flashlight dies. Rebecca builds a fire in an old stove and discovers a box of unsent letters Sophie wrote to her over the years. The letters move her to tears and strengthen her resolve. Using a black light from a Halloween box, Rebecca glimpses Diana's physical form — inhuman, with distorted features and glowing teeth — and narrowly escapes with Martin's help.

Bret returns with LAPD OFFICERS GOMEZ (early 30s) and FORM (30s). The officers enter the house and free Rebecca and Martin from the basement, but Diana attacks and kills both officers in the darkness, immune to gunfire since muzzle flashes only briefly dispel her. Sophie, who was knocked unconscious by Diana earlier, breaks free from her locked bedroom. Finding a fallen officer's gun, Sophie realizes she is the conduit keeping Diana alive. She puts the gun to her own head and fires, killing herself and causing Diana to vanish mid-attack. Rebecca and Martin grieve over their mother's body as the power returns.

One week later, Rebecca has transformed her apartment into a proper home. Emma delivers paperwork granting Rebecca foster-parent status of Martin. That night, Martin secretly communicates with something under his sofa bed and leaves Sophie's hairbrush as an offering. The power cuts out. Diana returns, attacks Bret and then Rebecca. Rebecca lures Diana into her bedroom where she and Bret have installed a homemade lighting rig — black lights to make Diana visible, then powerful floodlights that destroy Diana, turning her to ash. Martin asks if Diana is gone for good. Rebecca says she thinks so, and if not, they will be stronger next time — because they are fighters.

COMMENTS

PREMISE — Excellent

The central concept — a supernatural entity that can only exist in darkness, tethered to a mentally ill woman's untreated depression — is immediately graspable and rich with dramatic potential. It operates on two levels simultaneously: as a domestic horror premise with a clear, elegant rule (light destroys Diana, darkness empowers her), and as an allegory for the way mental illness ripples through families across generations. The pairing of Rebecca's estrangement from her mother with Martin's current entrapment creates a mirrored structure that gives the protagonist both external stakes (save the child) and internal stakes (confront the trauma she fled). The premise shares DNA with The Babadook in linking a supernatural threat to a parent's psychological state, but distinguishes itself by centering the grown child rather than the afflicted parent, which shifts the emotional calculus toward guilt, resentment, and reluctant responsibility. The thematic question — whether you can save someone who has become the host for something destructive — is compelling and sustains interest even when the horror mechanics are not active.

STRUCTURE — Fair

The opening sequence efficiently establishes Diana's rules and lethality through Paul's death (1-8), then pivots cleanly to Rebecca's world and the inciting incident of Martin's distress call from school (17-18). The commitment to the central conflict — Rebecca deciding to investigate Diana and protect Martin — lands around page 40-44 with the hospital visit, which is proportionally sound. The midpoint reversal occurs when Sophie attempts to introduce Martin to Diana (54-56), transforming Sophie from a passive depressive into an active threat and raising the stakes substantially. The extended siege at Sophie's house (72-96) functions as a sustained climactic sequence, though at roughly 24 pages it consumes nearly a quarter of the draft and contains structural redundancy — characters are trapped, escape, are trapped again, escape again. Sophie's suicide (96) provides a devastating emotional climax, but the material then extends into a full epilogue sequence (97-107) that introduces a second climax with Diana's return and destruction. This double ending dilutes the impact of Sophie's sacrifice and creates the structural impression of two separate finales rather than one cohesive resolution. The epilogue's tonal shift from grief to action-horror to triumph covers too much emotional ground too quickly.

CHARACTER — Good

Rebecca is the most fully realized character, with a clear backstory (abandoned by her father, traumatized by Diana, estranged from Sophie), a defined internal need (to stop running from her family), and a visible arc from emotional detachment to committed protector. Her cutting scars (10), her refusal to let Bret leave a sock (11), and her gradual softening — offering Bret a drawer (68), reading Sophie's letters (84) — track a coherent transformation. Martin functions effectively as the emotional catalyst but remains somewhat passive for the middle stretch; his most active moment is deploying the flashlight against Diana (56), which is strong but isolated. Sophie presents a more complex problem: the material needs her to be simultaneously sympathetic (a grieving, mentally ill woman) and threatening (someone who would expose her child to a monster), and the balance tips unevenly. Her forced introduction of Martin to Diana (54-55) makes her frightening, but her note to Rebecca reading "I NEED HELP" (69) immediately reframes her as a victim, and the whiplash undermines both characterizations. Bret is charming and consistently drawn as the loyal, good-natured boyfriend (9-13, 66-67), though his function narrows to comic relief and rescue-caller by the third act. Diana herself is effective as a presence but thin as a character — the therapy tapes (51-53) gesture toward a backstory of isolation and possessiveness without developing it into something that complicates the threat beyond "she wants friends and kills to keep them."

CONFLICT — Good

The central conflict — Rebecca versus Diana, with Sophie's mental state as the battleground — is well-defined and escalates through clear stages: Rebecca's initial skepticism gives way to investigation, then direct confrontation, then siege survival. The formidability of the antagonist is established immediately through Paul's death and reinforced by the police officers' helplessness (92-94), which effectively communicates that conventional force is useless. The internal conflict — Rebecca's guilt over abandoning her mother and brother — drives her key decisions, particularly the choice to stay overnight at Sophie's house (65) and her emotional turn after reading the letters (84). Scene-level conflict is strongest in the dining room confrontation (61-64), where every character has a different agenda and the tension is entirely psychological. The weakest conflict point is the extended basement sequence (72-89), where the physical danger is real but the characters' options narrow to scavenging for things to burn, which limits dramatic choice-making. The resolution of the primary conflict through Sophie's suicide carries genuine weight, but the epilogue conflict — Diana's return and destruction via the lighting rig — resolves through a device that has not been established earlier in the draft, which diminishes the sense of earned victory (see: Logic).

DIALOGUE — Good

Character voices are well-differentiated throughout. Bret's eager, slightly dorky energy ("Socks are not anchors," 12; "I wore my good jeans!" 22) contrasts sharply with Rebecca's clipped defensiveness ("You're a guy I've been seeing," 11), and the distinction holds even when they share extended scenes. Martin speaks with a maturity beyond his years that is psychologically justified by his circumstances — "It isn't safe anywhere" (65) and "I can't just leave her" (65) land with genuine emotional force without sounding precocious. Sophie's dialogue effectively modulates between wounded-mother manipulation ("Look how you turned out," 25) and eerie reverence when discussing Diana (55), though some of her exposition about Diana's history (55) edges toward on-the-nose explanation. The strongest dialogue exchange is the dining room confrontation (61-64), where overlapping arguments create naturalistic chaos. Diana's limited dialogue — "Be my friend" (71), "Never going away" (61) — is effective in its simplicity, though the mimicry of Rebecca's voice ("Come here," 78) is a standout moment that could have been deployed more than once.

PACING — Fair

The first 40 pages move briskly, establishing the world, the family dynamics, and the mystery of Diana with efficient scene construction. The Mulberry Hill investigation (44-53) sustains momentum through discovery beats, with the micro-cassette recordings providing both exposition and atmosphere. Pacing tightens effectively when Sophie forces Martin to meet Diana (54-56), launching the second half's escalation. The overnight siege at Sophie's house (65-96) is where pacing becomes problematic: at over 30 pages, the sequence cycles through trap-escape-trap patterns that begin to feel repetitive. The basement entrapment (72-89) runs particularly long, with the fire-building and box-searching consuming pages that delay forward momentum despite strong individual moments (the letters at 84, the black-light encounter at 87). The Bret-versus-Diana sequence (75-79) and the officers' arrival (90-94) both inject energy, but arriving in quick succession they create a sense of escalation through addition rather than through deepening. The epilogue (97-107) introduces a complete second confrontation that, while viscerally effective, extends the material past its natural emotional endpoint at Sophie's death.

TONE — Good

The tonal calibration between family drama and supernatural horror is the material's signature achievement. Early scenes with Rebecca and Bret (9-13) establish warmth and humor that make the horror sequences land harder by contrast, and the material resists the temptation to abandon its emotional register during set pieces — Martin's "You did" (79) arrives mid-siege and cuts deeper than any jump scare. The flashback to Sophie's bonfire (31-32) effectively bridges the two registers, presenting what could be a mundane domestic scene as something ritualistic and unsettling. The dining room confrontation (61-64) maintains tonal coherence by grounding the supernatural argument in recognizable family dysfunction. Two moments risk tonal disruption: Bret's "touchdown celebration" (68) after receiving a dresser drawer, which introduces comedy immediately before a scene of Sophie crying behind her door, and Rebecca producing a machete from her nightstand (103), which edges toward camp in a sequence that has otherwise been terrifying. The epilogue's shift from funeral solemnity to monster-slaying action (97-107) is the most significant tonal challenge, as it asks the material to recover from a parent's suicide and pivot to triumphant genre payoff within ten pages.

ORIGINALITY — Fair

The core conceit — a shadow entity that exists only in darkness — originates from David Sandberg's short film and is inherently cinematic, offering a visual grammar that distinguishes it from comparable supernatural horror. Where The Babadook uses its entity as an externalization of a single parent's grief and resentment, this material distributes the metaphor across generations, making Diana a kind of inherited haunting passed from mother to daughter. The execution departs meaningfully from Insidious and Poltergeist by grounding its mythology in medical history (heliotherapy, a real treatment) and institutional neglect (Diana's death during light therapy), which gives the supernatural elements an unusually tactile origin. The black-light revelation — that Diana has a physical form visible only under UV light — is a genuinely inventive addition to the light-versus-dark ruleset. Where originality diminishes is in the siege mechanics of the third act, which follow familiar home-invasion horror patterns (trapped in basement, police arrive and are killed, final girl confrontation), and in Diana's characterization, which does not evolve beyond the possessive-ghost archetype established in films like Mama. The self-sacrifice resolution echoes multiple horror predecessors where destroying the host destroys the entity.

LOGIC — Poor

The material establishes clear rules for Diana — she exists only in darkness, vanishes in light, and is tethered to Sophie's untreated depression — and follows them consistently through the first 90 pages. The black-light exception (Diana is visible but not destroyed under UV light) is introduced cleanly (85-87) and pays off in the climax. However, the epilogue introduces a significant logical problem: if Diana's existence depends on Sophie's depression, and Sophie is dead, the material needs to explain how Diana can return one week later. Martin's apparent willingness to communicate with Diana (101-102) gestures toward the idea that Diana can attach to a new host, but this is never articulated, and the implication contradicts the established mythology. Additionally, the custom lighting rig that destroys Diana (106) appears without prior setup — there is no scene showing Rebecca and Bret building it, and its existence as part of an "Emergency Plan" (102) is mentioned only at the moment of deployment. The police response also raises questions: Officer Form fires his weapon three times inside a residential home (93), but there is no subsequent reference to the legal complexity this would create. Sophie's ability to break free from her locked bedroom and locate a fallen officer's gun in total darkness (95-96) strains credibility given her physical state after being thrown into a bureau.

CRAFT — Good

The prose is lean and visually precise, with a strong instinct for horror staging — the parking garage sequence (7-8) demonstrates excellent control of spatial information, revealing the silhouette's advancing position through Paul's toggling of the flashlight in a way that reads as immediately filmable. Character introductions are economical and evocative: Rebecca is established through her Suicide Girl appearance and the reveal that this is her apartment, not Bret's (11), while Sophie's description — "hair that hints Warning: Manic" (3) — packs characterization into a parenthetical. The transition from Rebecca's mantle photo to Sophie's living room (14) is a particularly elegant piece of visual writing that conveys estrangement without dialogue. Action lines during horror sequences favor short paragraphs and sentence fragments that accelerate reading pace (33-34, 77-78, 87-88), which is effective. Occasional formatting choices feel overwrought — "A FUCKING MACHETE" (103) breaks the professional register — and some stage directions are redundant: "Rebecca's breath catches" appears in nearly identical form on pages 16, 33, and elsewhere. The screenplay runs slightly long at 106 pages for its genre, largely due to the epilogue sequence.

OVERALL — Consider

Lights Out is a supernatural horror thriller about a young woman who must protect her half-brother from a shadow entity that feeds on their mother's untreated depression. Its strongest elements are its premise — elegant in concept, rich in metaphor, and immediately cinematic — and its character work, particularly Rebecca's arc from emotional fugitive to committed guardian, which gives the horror genuine emotional stakes. The family drama scenes are as compelling as the scare sequences, and the dialogue is sharp and differentiated throughout. The material's primary structural weakness is its double ending: Sophie's self-sacrifice provides a devastating and thematically complete climax, but the epilogue introduces Diana's return and destruction through a device that lacks setup and contradicts the established rules. This creates a logic gap and dilutes the emotional impact of the preceding 96 pages. Tightening the final act to either eliminate the second confrontation or properly seed its mechanics earlier would significantly strengthen the draft. The extended basement siege, while containing strong individual moments (the letters, the black-light encounter), could also benefit from compression. As it stands, the material delivers a horror premise with genuine originality and emotional depth, undermined in its final stretch by structural choices that prioritize genre payoff over the coherence the first three-quarters so carefully build.