SVAFF: Memory is a fickle thing. It is tasked with defining who we are and the stories we tell, but it is also inherently unreliable; to remember something is to contort it, to change it with every recall till it becomes a simulacrum of its original form. Lights Out had the makings of something genuinely unsettling, but like a memory recalled too many times, it’s been distorted in the telling— under-explored, diluted, reduced to a shadow of its initial promise.
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The Cameroonian film, directed by Enah Johnscott (The Fisherman’s Diary), tells the story of Lucas, an elderly man, who finds himself in a facility where his memory is being questioned while the managers of the facility race to find funding before they are closed down. It’s a film that seems fractured from the get go, the two major storylines never connect despite the film’s attempts to pull the threads together and its use of confusion alienates rather than captures.
With Wale Ojo’s character Lucas, the film tries to ask how much we can trust our memory through the lens of dementia, but it lacks the tools for this story. He wanders around the facility bathed in suspicion, asking for his daughter. When he interacts with the experts in the film—Dr Henry and Maria—you see where the seams are coming undone. They’re awkwardly toeing the line between sinister and sincere in a bid to impart a psychological terror to the film, but then it quickly abandons this path.
Confusion is often a tool that serves the plot and it works hand in hand with intrigue, something should keep eyes glued to the story, but in Lights Out, confusion alone is the plot, which ends up putting walls around the film and prevents any emotional entry point. Take a love story it tries to create with Lucas and Monica, a woman admitted after his arrival, which feels tacked on despite being integral to the film.
Wale Ojo (Breath of Life) tries his best to sell you this emotional Rubik’s cube. His signature ticks and accent sell Lucas’ confidence and when he falls into turmoil, his face and body wear it well. Ngongang Elizabeth (Half Heaven) as Monica brings the childlike wonder of old age to the dynamic and the rest of the elderly cast play well together. Shaffy Bello (Shanty Town) is not surprising as Maria, she has been typecast as these well-spoken women and it works fine here, even though they try to give her a monologue towards the end that feels wrought with overacting. These acting performances are failed by writing that isn’t sure of itself; a simpler and more focused story might have saved the film, but we get two hours of a confused Wale Ojo and a constantly worried Shaffy Bello slowly moving to a turning point that comes fifteen minutes to the end.
The direction of this slow-moving vehicle is often forgettable, no clear visual language and the scenes are carried by the serene setting of the facility. The lush greens framing each scene and the soundtrack, at first effective and later distracting, present in every moment. A film interested in memory should come at it from a somewhat interesting angle, but the best it does is vague static flashbacks and a dull black and white reveal at the end.
Lights Out doesn’t ask enough questions and gives no answers to the ones it manages to ask. It veers into public service announcement territory sometimes, forgetting the core story and then comes back to lead you to an unsatisfactory end you hope your memory will be kind to in the future.
Lights Out screened at the Silicon Valley African Film Festival, which took place from October 9–12, 2025.
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Side Musings
- The wig that one of the workers wore in this film was atrocious. Don’t ask me, when you see it you’ll know.
- Let’s make another film in the building that served as the facility, it’s so pretty.
- There’s a scene where Dr Henry and Maria go to solicit for funds that has some horrible CGI used to tack on the ministry’s name to the building.
- The song “Santa Claus is coming to town” plays an important role in this film, does that make it a Christmas film?
- This film has some parallels with Kunle Afolayan’s Recall, but the latter has a more spiritual angle to memory.
