Wonderfully offbeat film!

Let's be realistic.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

When The Lights Went Out is a film that, whilst containing the occasional surprising element, is nothing that stands out or is otherwise new. The film is full of tropes and unsurprising scares that won't differ to the films most people have already seen. However, the actors carry the film nicely, and do an excellent job of making you feel sorry for Sally, the child and focal point of the spirit terrorising the family. The charming friendship that strikes up between Sally and Lucy is another redeeming factor of the film, and both actresses are excellent at showing the viewers their solidarity against the isolation and bullying of their classmates at school. Praise must also be given for costume and set designers. The film very accurately portrayed the 1970s and was full of little details for those around in the era to marvel at- some would argue that the reminiscence of the st design is more interesting than the actual hauntings taking place through the film.The film's declarative of it being 'based on a true story' is, for me, the only slightly chilling element of the movie, and contains very obvious jump-scares and surprises that could be predicted a good few minutes before their occurrence.All in all, I would certainly recommend this film if you want to branch out to lesser known, independent paranormal movies, but don't expect anything special, or anything you haven't already seen before. It has very little entertainment and almost no scare value, but is better than some well-known paranormal movies currently around.

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.

A family moves into a new house only to discover that a spirit lives there and wants to hurt their daughter. Sally is the first to witness the entity behavior but her parents don't believe her not even when a friend of Jenny said that she seen someone in the house they don't believe until she takes part one day at the manifestation and begins to figure out that her daughter doesn't have visions. Now they must seek help from a priest in order to perform an exorcism on the house so they could make the spirit to leave from their residence.I think this is "The Amityville Horror" UK version but much more worst. There are many things wrong about this one. First when the family are convinced that the house is haunted they don't leave but more they look for fame in the newspaper and allow other to visit like there is something entertaining. Len spends his time drinking in the pub instead to take care of his family and doesn't bother to look for a solution about his problem instead Sally's teacher Mr. Price does that is his place. Len along with a friend assist at the exorcism along with the priest even though they don't have any experience. The movie tries to be a real story from the '70 but the missing facts and the uninspired actors makes this to be horrible and silly, so don't bother.

I have to admit, the German cover art looks more demonic than the movie turns out to be. Still there are quite a few nice performances, even the mother who has the toughest job to pull off. And she barely makes it in my opinion. The movie walks a thin line between going into the dark (no pun intended) and some might like the decision it takes about jumping or not jumping over the edge (it would be spoiling telling you that, so I leave that one open).The other clever decision the movie makes it, that it doesn't try to outdo the Exorcist. It would be a lost battle from the get go, so it doesn't even try to go that direction. It does have a few nice ideas here and there, some of which are not further explored (unfortunately). Overall a decent effort.