When the lights are out, what could be hiding in the shadows? This question is answered in Lights Out, the feature film debut for director David F. Sandberg. The film has an interesting history. The original two minute short was made by Sandberg and his wife, Lotta Losten and was submitted to a U.K. short film challenge. Though the film finished in the Top Ten, Sandberg won the Best Director award. Its YouTube video, however, went viral. Soon enough, Hollywood came calling. The film went viral in late 2014 and in early 2015, Sandberg and Losten were flown to Los Angeles to meet with studio executives. In late 2014, the film was in production and is now being released. For those who may not know, this is an incredibly short time for a film to be made.
In Lights Out, when Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) left home, she thought that her childhood fears were behind her. As a young girl growing up, she was never really sure of what was real when the lights went out at night. Now, her little brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is experiencing the same unexplained and terrifying events that jeopardized her safety and sanity. Holding a mysterious attachment to their mother (Maria Bello), the supernatural entity has returned with a vengeance to torment the entire family. Though she’s been in a fair amount of dark dramas, this is Bello’s first supernatural thriller.
“I’ve been offered this sort of genre film before, but it’s never been something I’ve been interested in. When I read the script, if you take out the horror, this could be a stand-alone family drama. That’s how well the characters are written. There’s this mom on the verge of a breakdown. She can’t connect with her kids. She doesn’t have the mental or emotional capacity to do so. I’m blessed with the gift of bi-polar disorder as you know from my book last year (“Whatever…Love Is Love: Questioning the Labels We Give Ourselves”). I felt that was a real gift I got to bring to the screen. I know how that is to be in that position of being incapacitated emotionally; of not being able to connect with people in the real world. I like talking about it so other people can talk about it. Mental illness is universal.”
Though Lights Out is classified as a horror movie, Bello doesn’t classify the movie that way.
“If you take the horror out of the script, you see how [mental illness] is a family disease and how affecting it is, especially when someone goes off their medication. You see children taking care of their parents because their parents can’t take care of the children. I think a lot of that really plays in the movie. You see how Teresa’s character has become who she is – not being able to be intimate or vulnerable – because she’s terrified since she had to take care of her mother all her life.”
Though Bello has been publicly vocal with her battle with bi-polar disorder, it wasn’t discussed on set. Her battle did inform her performance however.
“I didn’t talk to [Sandberg] about it. For me, it’s not really an issue. The shame about it is way passed. I talked about it in my book about how it’s really a gift for me as an actor to know what those really high highs and those really low lows are like. I’m able to use that emotion to convey something onscreen which a lot of people might not be able to do. I know that Lawrence Grey really wanted me to play this part.
I really tried to play that up – playing normal in front of my child. Then when I’m alone, especially with Diana, letting myself go and completely going there. The end of the movie is a great surprise I think because you’re not sure this whole time who or what Diana is. You know that she’s my friend from childhood from the mental institution, but is she a who? Is she a what? Is she part of my psychology? To see how torn I am as a parent about protecting my kids and protecting this entity, I think it’s a surprise at the end when you find out.”
Though Lights Out is Sandberg’s directorial debut, Bello wasn’t hesitant to take the role.
“It’s always a little nerve wracking with a first-time director. When I was offered the film with James Wan and Lawrence Grey producing, I knew they were great at what they do. Then I saw [director] David’s [Sandberg] short film. The way he lit it and humanized his wife Lotta who’s in that film in just three minutes – and how scary it was with just the simple lights on and off – I knew this guy was onto something for a feature film. That translated onto the set. Although he had less experience than anyone on the set, he really surrounded himself with great, experienced people. He had no ego about it, but had a very strong vision about what he wanted.”
The problem with the horror genre is that some movies can be, well, cheesy. Fortunately, Lights Out sidesteps this landmine and Bello knows why.
“It’s definitely in the writing. I don’t see a lot of horror films. I especially don’t like the slasher films, but I do enjoy thrillers. I like to explain this film as you’re walking in the forest and you hear a twig snap behind you. You look and when you look forward again, you hear a snap, snap, snap behind you until it gets dark and you’re running petrified through the woods. Films like this can be kind of cheesy, but because of the writing, there’s nothing cheesy about this one.”
Though Lights Out is a movie about being afraid of the dark, Bello is much like her character in the film in that she’s not afraid of the dark. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
“I’m one of those odd people who loves the dark. I sleep with a pillow over my head. If I hear something in my house, I run towards it. I have this big old hunting knife at the side of my bed and I pick it up and run to wherever the noise is. I don’t know what I’d actually do if I ever found someone. I’ve also always had this thing about ghosts since I was a kid where I would ask ghosts to come visit me. I was in this hotel in Bakersfield. The Long Island Medium had been there actually. It’s a true story where these two kids walk the hallways. The housekeepers say they always see these two little kids. They left a hand print on one of the walls and no matter how much they try to clean it off, the hand print always comes back. I stayed up for two nights. I even set my alarm to wake me up. I’m like, ‘come on. Come to me. I really want to see you.’ And no one ever came to me even though I’m asking them to come to me.”
Speaking of the supernatural, the female-driven Ghostbusters recently achieved box office success. Bello, like any woman in Hollywood, is always happy to see women succeed.
“I’m loving that about Hollywood more and more. I was excited to see how well Ghostbusters did at the box office this weekend. I’m producing right now and the projects are all about women in front of and behind the camera. We’re dealing with only the fact that only 4% of directors are female and the pay inequity in this business. 50% of the audience is women, but we don’t have more women in front and behind the camera. I love to see movies like this that are female driven and to see that they can be financed. The financial model boils down to international sales which always depends on some white movie star actors. It’s changing though.”
Also, like many women in Hollywood, Bello is turning to producing to take charge of her career.
“I have a wonderful project with Viola Davis for my production company. I have a big action adventure that you’ll be hearing about soon. I have another movie that I star in and executive produced that will premiere in Toronto called The Journey is the Destination. I’m producing quite a few film and TV projects with strong, female-led characters. I’m going to do this little movie in the fall where I wept when I read the script. The material was so relevant about bullying and sexuality and teenagers. I play the mother and even though it’s a small part, I wanted to executive produce because I wanted to be involved because it’s such a powerful story. At this point in my career, I’m interested in the entirety of the story instead of just the acting part.”
And if you loved her in her television roles on “ER” and “Prime Suspect,” don’t fret. You will soon see Bello on the small screen too.
“I’m doing a David E. Kelly series for Amazon with Billy Bob Thornton and William Hurt. It’s called “Goliath.” It will come out in the fall I believe. I like working fast. In TV, we’re always working quickly. In independent feature films like [Lights Out], you also work fast. It’s only with the really big-budget studio movies that it’s a slower process and takes three or four months to make a movie. To be honest, I’d rather work much more quickly.”
Lights Out opens in theaters July 22.
