Movie review
July 21, 2016 · 81 min · PG-13
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
Lights Out (2016) is a supernatural horror film about a young woman who returns home to protect her half-brother from a malevolent spirit that only appears in darkness and is bound to their mother's severe mental illness and childhood trauma. The story uses the entity as a literal metaphor for depression and family dysfunction, centering on investigation, survival, and ultimate sacrifice. No identity politics, activist dialogue, representation emphasis, gender-based messaging, or cultural critique appear in the narrative, casting, marketing, or creator statements.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Lights Out.
Woke representation / casting
Casting uses performers who naturally fit the contemporary suburban American family premise with zero forced diversity, identity signaling, or mismatches to story logic.
Woke political dialogue
Dialogue stays limited to family conflicts, mental health, and supernatural threats with no activist language, political references, or modern social messaging of any kind.
Identity-driven story themes
The narrative engine is a personal supernatural horror story about trauma, depression, and sibling protection presented through classic monster tropes without any identity politics, gender empowerment arcs, or representation focus.
Western institutional / cultural critique
The film contains no critiques of patriarchy, toxic masculinity, capitalism, Western institutions, or systemic issues; it remains a contained family horror tale.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
No backlash exists claiming woke, activist, or left-wing content; searches across reviews, news, and social media turn up zero relevant complaints of any type.
Creator track record context
Neither Sandberg nor Heisserer has any cited history of activist, identity-driven, or politically themed prior work that aligns with this title.
Production
