When the Lights Went Out (2012)

Well - despite the negative views on this, i found it to be a chilling encounter with unnatural forces - be interesting to see what the reviews do now after the "most haunted" team have been there trying to DEBUNK it all and failing miserably...... they were truly scared -i get that in the film there are some calendarical errors, that aside, it was a good movie - all the more so for being based on true events and i do not personally think that it swayed far from the path of truth - in the eyes of those that lived through it - there is always the doubt that it was flounced up (artistic expression and all that malarky) but if you get back to the bare bones of it.......

Directed by Pat Holden, the nephew of the real-life family this story is based around, When the Lights Went Out (2012) is a British horror film set in 1970's Yorkshire. In short, a movie which I thought was going to be a complete washout turned out to be a movie that was actually pretty good but just didn't quite live up to it's potential. Plus, as is pretty typical with average horror movies, the ending was dreadful.Based on a true story – apparently the most violent poltergeist haunting in European History, the film follows the Maynard's. They are a family semi-struggling through 1974 northern Britain, as they move into a new home which isn't quite as empty as they had hoped. It really does hit the ground running. Unlike other horror movies that build the tension over time with quiet scenes where your heart pounds out of your chest just as … absolutely nothing happens … YET, the creaks and bangs in this movie are present straight away. And who knew that a slinky could be quite so sinister?Other than the overly stern priest/exorcist (Gary Lewis: Filth, Billy Elliot), the acting was pretty convincing. The one thing I cannot stand with horror movies is when the cast are far too serious and just suck the life out of a scene by making it so completely unrealistic from a human point of view. People do have lives, yes they can be scared witless but they can still laugh. The cast and direction made the family out to be a typical, Yorkshire, 70s family that enjoyed avocado kitchens, floral wallpaper (great scene involving this, GREAT scene) and drinking babycham whilst smoking (the movie world has lead me to believe that everybody smoked in the 70s). They poke fun at each other even in the face of a pending exorcism. It all adds up to a pretty believable collection of people.And the ghost isn't terrifying but is creepy. And the fact that the main character is a rough and tough Yorkshireman helps: if he's creeped out then it must be pretty creepy.All in all, not bad. And, in my wonderfully inexperienced opinion, I'd give it a 5/10.

A horror movie that is quite indecisive whether it wants to be a comedy as well – in spite of the fact that it deals with "the most malevolent poltergeist in Europe's history". Long segments of WTLWO have no gags, but then the "humour" rears its absurd head in the most inappropriate moments, rendering the characters' behavior illogical. The film-makers should have chosen a direction and stuck with it, instead of meandering between genres like confused teens. Just to give you an idea: the girl's father and his pal blackmail the local priest into conducting the exorcism, and they do this by showing him sex-photos of him and his maid.Several idiotic plot-devices were used by force to advance "conflict" hence the plot.Firstly, the way Sally loses her best friend is quite absurd: Sally faints during a school excursion, and her teacher instructs her friend to go inside the house to watch over her. Once there, Sally's friend must immediately do no. 1 because she "wore nappies at the age of 10" (how convenient for the writer). Predictably, she gets attacked while peeing (in what is also perhaps a world premiere of a 13 year-old girl being shown peeing and wiping – though I am excluding French cinema in which this must have been done by now). The girl's mother angrily admonishes Sally – yet Sally FAILS to tell her that it wasn't her fault and that she had fainted previously. Sally's mother appears a minute later and smacks Sally hard, in SPITE of the fact that Sally had a mysterious band-aid on her forehead, which apparently wasn't noticed by her mother for whatever baffling reason, nor did she ever even ask Sally how she hurt herself. In other words, the entire fainting episode is something Sally FAILS to inform her parents about – and they never find out about it – which I thought was extremely moronic. A dozen people could have told them about it: the teacher, Sally, Sally's pal, Sally's classmates, the school principal, etc, yet none of them do.Secondly, the role of the private exorcist. He shows up at the pub where Sally's father gets drunk, but instead of introducing himself to him, he insults him and gets into a row! What purpose could this scene possibly serve? To tell us that Sally's father likes bar-brawls? Who gives a toss! Later, the mystery man hands a visit-card to Sally who predictably FAILS to show it to her parents. Later, when she finally calls him for help, he is unable to do much; the only thing we learn from this man is that there are two ghosts instead of one – as if that wasn't quite obvious anyway. Sally keeps failing to communicate the most essential information to her parents, as if she had her tongue already cut by the tongue-cutting ghost.The ghost is a pedophilic, serial-killing priest. He fondles Sally on many occasions, in what is slightly tasteless fare. But then again, this is the same movie that gives us insight into how a 13 year-old pees! Why be surprised. I am just glad the camera didn't go down into the toilet-bowl before the flushing occurred, to help us understand what a girl's pee looks like seconds before its sent into the British Canal.There is another cretinous scene early on when Sally's father lunges out of the cellar frightened out of his wits and actually smacks his daughter full-on – in spite of just having had encountered a ghost! The writer tries hard to alienate Sally from her parents and society, using all the clichés in the text-book, and then exaggerating them to the point of absurdity.

In 1974 the Maynard family move in to a new house . Their teenage daughter quickly becomes more and more disconcerted about being in the house , almost as if there's a supernatural presence at play . Within a short period of time it becomes clear a poltergeist is stalking the family Supposedly based on a real life haunting that became known The Black Monk Of Prontefract . I knew nothing about this case so looked it up on Wikipedia to find that the researchers found it to be faked . Oh what a surprise that was . I mean if ghosts exist that means there's a life after death when most human beings spend their entire existence wondering at nearly every point if there might actually be a life before death . Perhaps the debunking meant the story didn't ingrain itself on the British psyche similar to that one in Amityville ? It might also explain why the characters have had their names changed in this film Despite being fiction WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT does succeed in doing what it sets out to do - scare the audience . Okay director Pat Holden hardly needs to break sweat because of the scare tactics are achieved through sound mixing silence followed by deafening crashes but is more than efficient in making the audience jump . Some people might be annoyed by a lack of a truly physical threat but as someone who has spent the last few eeks watching one grade Z horror film after another where the selling point is gore then this is a nice , understated restrained change of pace One thing Holden is possibly conscious of is how ridiculous the mid 1970s were culture wise . Music and fashion reached a nadir in this decade which had never been seen before and thankfully one hopes will never be seen again . Imagine watching Gary Glitter on TOP OF THE POPS presented by Jimmy Savile followed by IT'S A KNOCKOUT with Stuart Hall . Add to this hideous hairstyles and flared trousers and you wonder why the dead would bother contact the living , therefore Holden doesn't make WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT seem too much like the 1970s