Lights Out
2013 · 3m · Sweden
Directed by David F. Sandberg
Genres: horror
A woman in a hallway is tormented by a figure that only appears in the dark — the moment the lights come on, it vanishes; the moment they go off, it's there again. Three minutes of pure primal fear.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Three minutes. One rule. Don't turn off the light. This is the short film that proves a concept with one actor and zero budget better than most studio horror does with $40 million — and then Sandberg went and made the feature. The original still hits harder.
David F. Sandberg engineered an entire horror mechanic from light/dark binary — three minutes that founded a franchise because the concept is irreducible. Pure primal-fear cinema.
Three minutes of pure primal fear engineered from a single binary: light vs. dark. David F. Sandberg's mechanic was so clean it launched an entire feature franchise. 10.7M views for a reason.
Festivals
- FANT Bilbao International Fantasy Film Festival 2014, Best Short Film
- Bloody Cuts Who's There Film Challenge 2013, Best Director