The Lights (2009) review

A night of young love turns into terror when four teens venture to watch a meteor shower in an isolated area and inadvertently land in the crosshairs of a deranged serial killer. Meanwhile, a strange pair of mysterious lights float around in the night sky.

The Woods suffers from a bit of an identity crisis because director John Sjogren does not make the main intention of his film obvious enough. For example, the DVD cover art and description make this one seem like it will a typical backwoods slasher flick played completely straight, but many of the scenes in the film are presented as a bit offbeat and comedic. It is hard to gauge if this is meant to be a horror-comedy or a straight up spoof of backwoods slasher films because the tone is too dark. If it is meant to be a spoof or a horror-comedy, it is simply not a good attempt at executing either one.

Another problem is the killer Jack Carter, played by Kerry Wallum. A horror film's villain outweighs the importance of the protagonists, yet the character of Carter lacks any fear-inducing qualities and is overall just plain boring. From a physical perspective, Carter looks like a cross between a present-day Ted Nugent, Jimmy Buffett and comedian Bill Engvall from the Blue Collar Comedy troupe rolled up into one whose weapons of choice are a machete and hammer. Look at the below screen caps for evidence...


Exhibit A



Exhibit B

Not exactly a great mold for cinematic villainy, is it? And the script calls for his character to have too much strange dialogue to be considered a serious threat. Wallum is a bit of a hulking man when standing close to other actors and maybe more emphasis should have been placed on his physicality instead of his hokey lines. Wallum got left hung out to dry here in how his character is represented by the director not playing to his strengths.

The acting is somewhat below average, but it is surprisingly better than the story. Joe Estevez plays the town sheriff Cade in a humorous capacity, which is entertaining at first but ultimately backfires as the film enters the later acts. When it is time for the Cade character to turn dramatic, it is almost impossible to accept him in this fashion. Add to the fact that he is involved in the big plot twist that is extremely obvious from about ten minutes into the film, and Joe's big scene is ineffective. However, the acting we get from him early on is fun and also gives us a look at what his brother Emilio will look like in about 10 years.


Estevez's presence is a one of the few positives

The fatal flaw with this film is the plot line for the actual "lights" aka the Windy Hill Mystery Lights. The film is called The Lights, there is a hinted mystery surrounding them at the beginning of the film and the lights are swirling around for more than half the movie, yet in the end we get no payoff for their significance. Are they ghosts, aliens, gasses? We are never given any visibility and they essentially do not even need to be in this film.

If lights' continued mystery was the director's intent, then they should not have been the focus of the picture's title. It would be like never showing that a shark was attacking people in Jaws and leaving it up to the viewers to decide what was the sea beast's significance, even though the film is titled Jaws. Without spoiling anything, let's just say there are two moments where the lights seem to "do" something or another, but we are never given any confirmation if it is the lights or simply a coincidence.


For a low budget flick, the effects used for the "lights" are passable

The pacing also hampers the film even though it contains a short running time. It seems to take ages for our main cast to get to the site. Part of this can be blamed on unnecessarily long montages, filled with horrible Skinemax-like music, that seem to only be used to pad out the running time. There are moments of ridiculousness that are hard to be believed even for this type of film, like a scene involving a "national champion cyclist"...who trains alone even though he is a national champion and would be sponsored out the wazoo.

More importantly, things do not get into full horror mode until right near the film's conclusion. And the horror is definitely a diet version of horror, complete with a low body count. Finally, the audience is "treated" for their patience and endurance with an abrupt ending that leaves some loose ends and unanswered questions.


One of the montages...this one contained the T&A factor

Whatever the case may be, the end result is very disjointed. It's not scary enough to be a horror film and definitely not funny enough to be a comedy, so the audience is not sure what type of genre they are digesting. It's a huge distraction.

If there are any positive, one would be actress Elizabeth Jauregui who plays Kelly Rogers. She does not have top-flight acting talents, but is extremely beautiful and photogenic. the other would the aforementioned presence of Estevez.

After some research on The Lights, this is the very first published review on the film even though the release year is documented as 2009. Not sure of its distribution status, but it is easy to see why it has such low awareness. Even if backwoods slashers interest you, don't bother to turn on The Lights. Keep them off and look for another movie on the shelf.