Before Curry Barker’s Obsession, Kane Parsons’s Backrooms and Markiplier’s Iron Lung turned short-form horror into studio business, David F. Sandberg had already built the template with Lights Out.
The Swedish filmmaker made a two-and-a-half-minute short on virtually no budget, starring his wife Lotta Losten as a woman stalked when the lights go out. It was, by design, dialogue-free.
A short that found its audience
The short won best director at the Bloody Cuts Horror Challenge. Months later, a Reddit link changed its trajectory.
- Views jumped from about 8,000 to more than one million.
- Producer Lawrence Grey contacted Sandberg about a feature with James Wan.
- Screenwriter Eric Heisserer adapted the short with a full cast including Teresa Palmer.
- Warner Bros. released Lights Out on July 22, 2016, and it grossed $148 million globally on a $4 million budget.
What test screenings changed
The feature version did not immediately score well. Sandberg told The Hollywood Reporter that the team was puzzled by low test scores until they cut the final few minutes that showed the spirit returning. “The scores went up 30 points,” he said. “It was like, ‘I guess that’s the ending.’”
Losten credits the short’s global reach to its lack of dialogue: “It just floated around the world because I don’t say anything.”
Why it matters now
Lights Out was the first studio-backed horror movie to originate as a YouTube short. That matters to entertainment marketers and producers because it turned a no-budget online video into a distributable proof of concept. For titles such as Backrooms, Obsession and Iron Lung, the same funnel is now being repeated with bigger expectations.
For young creators, Sandberg’s advice is to keep creating because you never know what will resonate. For media planners, the signal is simpler: short-form performance is an early indicator of IP that can travel.
What to watch
A sequel remains in the works. If it moves forward, it will test whether the IP has life beyond its initial viral moment. For teams evaluating creator-driven IP, the Lights Out case offers a checklist: does the short work without dialogue? Did viewership spike organically? Can a small test-audience change dictate the final cut?
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
