Lights Out (II) (2016)
Trivia
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Spoilers (3)
Teresa Palmer hadn't seen the design of Diana before filming, until she filmed her first scene with her on a completely dark set. This was an intentional directorial choice so as to provoke a genuine reaction of fear when first seeing the design. Alicia Vela-Bailey, the woman in the costume, was previously Palmer's stunt double on I Am Number Four (2011), it would have ruined the effect had she seen her prior as she would have recognized her therefore losing the authentic expression of fear.
David F. Sandberg decided to focus on practical effects and avoided as much CGI as possible.
Director David F. Sandberg aimed to use as much authentic lighting for the film as possible. Some scenes were only lit by candle lights or fluorescent tubes.
On the wall in Rebecca's room, a poster reads "Släckt", which is Swedish for "Lights Out" or "Extinguished".
Diana was created with a photorealistic prosthetic suit that could also function as a green screen suit so as to remove her from the scene when the lights came on. The designer of the suit previously created the title character of Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).
The feature film debut of David F. Sandberg. He decided to expand his original short film Lights Out (2013) into a feature film after it garnered very positive reception on the internet.
A sequel to the film was immediately greenlit after the film recouped its budget on its opening weekend alone.
(at around 6 mins) During the opening sequence of the movie, a bobble head with a large smile across its face, similar to the original monster design, can be seen on the office bookshelf as a nod to the original 3-minute short.
The house in this movie is the same one used in Ouija (2014) and Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016).
Lotta Losten, star of the original short, returns for a role and gives her feature film debut.
Diana was originally supposed to be more of a demonic presence, but James Wan suggested that she have a human background so she could have a relationship to Sophie and add to the connection to the family.
Teresa Palmer had to use a wig in a few scenes. That was because she had to dye her hair black for Point Break (2015).
The film was pushed from a winter to a summer release following positive audience reaction from test screenings.
In an interview when asked about the casting of Diana, David said " I figured she would be pretty still but once I met Alicia, we met Alicia just to have her as a stunt person for whoever would play Diana, but when I met Alicia and she showed me what she could do because she's a dancer and she has full control over her body I was like, ' oh this is really awesome so let's have Alicia play Diana the whole time and we can really turn her into This ferocious, animalistic creature almost.
The basement of the house in which most of the filming took place mysteriously caught fire a few months after production wrapped.
David F. Sandberg was hired to direct Annabelle: Creation (2017) after working on this film and began pre-production before this was released in theaters.
The character played by Lotta Losten is named Esther as a tribute to the members of the theatre group "Theater Esther", of which she was a a member before Lights Out (2013) went viral and took her and David F. Sandberg to Hollywood.
David F. Sandberg, along with his wife Lotta Losten, created the initial short film for a film competition. Although the film did not win the competition, the short soon went viral, leading to Sandberg to be contacted by several agents, to the point where he had to develop a spreadsheet to keep track of them all. One of the contacts was Lawrence Grey who wanted to collaborate with James Wan in order to produce a feature-length version. Although Wan enjoyed the short, he was hesitant that it could be turned into a feature until Sandberg produced a treatment for the feature-length version.
The move to Hollywood was somewhat hectic for David F. Sandberg and his wife, requiring that Losten quit her day job in order to do so. Once in Hollywood the two were unable to get an apartment due to a lack of credit, forcing them to rent Airbnb on a monthly basis.
Actors auditioning for the role of "Martin" had to improvise a scene with David F. Sandberg where had taken their flashlight and the auditioning actor had get it back. Gabriel Bateman was the only actor who tried to physically pull the flashlight back from Sandberg, accidentally hurting Sandberg's arm in the process. This ended up winning him the role.
Special effects of having the ghost appear and disappear were mostly done by using a split-screen technique as also used in the short. Sandberg said "Whenever she's in frame with another character, it's basically just a split screen. So you shoot it with her and without her. You turn the camera on with her, you turn it off and she walks off, and then you turn it on again. It's super simple, actually." Sandberg also made a list of what he called the "light gags", or different ways to create light sources from flashlights to cell phones and gunfire. Director James Wan also put in the idea of replacing the flickering neon sign with passing car headlights.
David F. Sandberg said that his goal was to keep Diana's appearance in the film as a silhouette, when asked about how challenging it was to keep Diana in the dark, he said " very challenging because I didn't want you to cheat, I had to storyboard all of it just to make sure that she was truly a silhouette at first I was working with a storyboard artist, he would draw her with a rim light and I was like "No we can't shoot it like that because that's cheating" so I had to do my own storyboards and figure out how we could always keep her as a true silhouette when she grabs Bret I had to think about it, " if he uses his flashlight like this to bang on the handle if she grabs and when he's up here then the flashlight is pointed backwards creating a silhouette so that she can actually grab him" it was really hard to figure out exactly how to get her on film.
Gabriel Bateman's second horror film to be produced by James Wan. He previously starred in Annabelle (2014).
(at around 38 mins) When Martin and his mother have a movie night, the movie that they are watching is Auntie Mame (1958).
Director David F. Sandberg personally handled several VFX shots himself during post-production with the studio's permission.
Second collaboration between the two film companies Atomic Monster and New Line Cinema. The first one was Annabelle (2014), which also previously featured Gabriel Bateman.
A youtuber by the name of CreepsMcPasta claimed that the director of "Lights Out" David F. Sandberg may have stolen the idea of the concept from one of his YouTube stories titled "The Abstergo Man". Even though the film was based on the short film of the same name which was also directed by Sandberg, the short was released on December of 2013 while the "Abstergo Man" story was uploaded to YouTube on October of 2013 which was two months earlier from the release of the short film. The two stories also share similarities of plot which involves around a dark figure that appears when the lights are off and disappears when the lights are turned on. So far, Sandberg himself has not replied to this accusation.
Teresa Palmer is the second Australian actress to lead a horror film produced by James Wan. The first one was Rose Byrne in Insidious (2010).
Maria Bello (Sophie) compared Diana to Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees saying "I think people at Comic-Con will be dressed up as Diana next year, just the way she moves her hands and shoulders I think created an entire Beast I think her creature will transcend time and will be like a Freddy Krueger or a Jason".
(at around 34 mins) When Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) is listening to the recording of a doctor talking about Diana, the doctor mentions that "She has a history of violence". Maria Bello, who plays Rebecca's mother, starred in the film A History of Violence (2005).
This is the second movie where Maria Bello involves family and horror. The first was The Dark (2005).
Martin is seen wearing a Batman t-shirt in a photo and, in the same camera movement, we also see a figurine of Batman's sidekick Robin. Teresa Palmer was cast as Talia Al Ghul, one of Batman's villains and mother of Damian Wayne who took up the mantle of Robin, in George Miller's cancelled Justice League: Mortal (2007) and has since actively campaigned for the same role in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and opposite Ben Affleck in the DC Extended Universe.
Spoilers
Director David F. Sandberg revealed that in original test screenings, Diana returned after Sophie's death via suicide to attack Rebecca, Bret, and Martin in a scene that occurred after the ambulance scene. After a negative reaction, the scene was removed and is included as a supplemental feature on the Blu-ray and DVD.
David F. Sandberg originally based the character of Rebecca a real girl that he knew who was going through depression and being a cutter which is why Rebecca has scars on her arms, but the development of the film made it less of her depression, and more of a ghost story in which Diana would have been the real person who died and became a ghost. Wan came up with the idea of making Diana the ghost. Rebecca's boyfriend was also given a twist of being a rocker, but is actually committed and responsible, even driving a safe car like a Volvo. Another twist Sandberg liked was making the imaginary friend for the mother rather than the trope of having the friend be for the child.
After hearing concerns from critics that the ending of the film was promoting suicide, Sandberg interviewed with AV Club where he said he was distressed about that idea, and wanted to explain his position. He said that he originally wanted to make a film about depression, as he has also suffered from it, and that one of his friends had committed suicide. Diana was not a ghost back then, but during the development of the film, it became more of a horror film. It still retained some themes about depression and mental illness. He had originally shot a second ending to the film in which Martin becomes depressed and Diana comes back one more time before she is killed. However, test audiences hated that ending, saying that Sophie's sacrifice would have been in vain.
