While the title of the movie has nothing to do with the narrative itself and certainly isn’t related to director David Sandberg’s directorial debut either, Don’t Turn Out the Lights comes off as an outdoor group survival horror, the likes of which you have seen numerous times but can’t help checking out just for curiosity’s sake. Predictable and filled with annoying stereotypes, there isn’t much that the movie can offer to seasoned horror aficionados, but a somewhat decent chemistry among the characters and decently crafted ambience contributing to the atmospheric horror help viewers stick through the runtime.
Spoilers Ahead
Birthday Celebration Gone Wrong
A group of annoying, overly enthusiastic college grads who were formerly high school buddies reunite to celebrate their narcissistic, social media-obsessed friend Olivia’s birthday, who proposes they spend a wild weekend at the Bluelight music festival—a ten-hour drive from their meeting point. Olivia’s best friend, Carrie, the only sensible member of the group, doesn’t see eye to eye with Sarah, an obnoxious rich girl stereotype. Joining them is Gaby, their energetic, loudmouth friend, and her goofy stoner ex-boyfriend, Chris, whom no one takes seriously. Olivia’s boyfriend, Michael, borrows his uncle’s RV without his knowledge, and the last one to join the group is Michael’s roommate, Jason, a former marine with an attitude. Except Michael, no one knows Jason personally; despite that, Carrie and Sarah find themselves swooning over him quite inexplicably.
While making the first pit stop, the group gets into a heated argument with a bunch of rednecks who were trying to harass the girls, and as things start escalating all of a sudden, Jason manages to beat them into submission. Eventually, the rednecks chase after them in their truck, and flooring the accelerator of the RV, Jason manages to get the group to safety—albeit entering a different route as a result. Carrie decides to call the authorities to report the incident, but she is discouraged by her friend and ends up changing her mind. On their current course, it will take a couple of hours longer to reach Bluelight, but considering it to be better than backtracking, the group decides to continue their journey anyway. After venturing further, they lose their cell network and take a turn simply by guessing the possible direction, until Jason brings out an old map from the co’s hidden compartment to check whether they are on the right track. Carrie spots a luxury car left unattended by the side of the road and wonders the possible reason as to why the passengers might have abandoned it.
After driving throughout the day, at night, the group comes across a bar, and to ask for directions, Carrie and Michael enter the joint and seek help from the bartender. Once again, they have seemingly stumbled across a crowd of neo-nazi rednecks, and refusing to help, the bartender asks them to drive back to the highway. Further pleading results in the bartender threatening the duo with a gun, prompting them to return to their RV and return to their current route. Before departing, Sara catches a glimpse of a semi-truck, pretty similar to the one that was chasing them erstwhile—but shrugs off her suspicion for the time being. In the meantime, getting high on the assortment of narcotics he had brought, Chris knocks himself out. The group tries to lighten the mood by once again engaging in frivolous antics, but things take a wrong turn after the RV seemingly hits something and stops in the middle of the road. With the pitch-black darkness of the wilderness surrounding them, not a soul in sight, and no cell network, panic soon ensues among the youngsters. Michael decides to check out whatever crashed with the vehicle in the front, and finding nothing there, he manages to restart the vehicle. However, as is the trend with any horror movie, curiosity ends up killing the cat, and while trying to locate the source of a creepy noise in the back of the RV, Michael gets taken by something unknown. His girlfriend, Olivia, the only one to see what actually happened with him through the window, loses consciousness in absolute shock, leading to a chaotic situation among the friends.
An Unknown Evil Starts Hunting Down The Friends
Things go from bad to worse real fast, as unearthly voices from outside the RV start calling Michael’s name, and Jason decides to venture outside to look for Michael. Taking a flashlight and a gun that he has found inside the RV, Jason decides to step outside to scope the area but finds no sign of Michael anywhere nearby. Continuing the horror movie tradition of nonsensical decision-making, Jason ventures deep into the dark depths of the forest, notices the presence of someone nearby, and gets attacked by the unseen evil that had taken Michael as well. The only still conscious members of the group, Carrie, Gaby, and Sarah, remain trapped inside the RV, remaining clueless about Michael or Jason’s fate—with sounds of gunshots and a scream signifying that whatever is out there is not going to spare any of them unless they can think of a way to escape from this godforsaken place.
Carrie peeps through the window, and her hands feel the presence of someone reaching out to her from outside—recreating the imagery from the poster, possibly also the best scene in the movie as well. A panicked Carrie starts screaming, and as the RV door opens for a flash, the group sees a bloodied Jason warning them to escape—moments before he is pulled away into the darkness. Screaming at top of their lungs, the trio of girls shut the door and windows of the RV in a hopeless attempt to keep the outside presence at a distance, and revving up the RV, they start to flee the scene. However, the RV gets pulled back to the location where it was stranded, as it becomes clearer with every passing moment that something is not willing to allow them to escape with their lives.
With fear creeping into their minds, the trio of girls begin speculating wildly, Gaby in particular is of the idiotic, delusional opinion that the entire situation is an elaborate, long-planned prank played on them by Michael, Jason, and Olivia, which really conveys her delusional state of mind at present. Carrie wonders whether the rednecks have returned to take revenge upon them, but she cannot explain the supernatural nature of the events unfolding around them either. However, her speculation falls apart when Olivia remains catatonic and their unconventional efforts to wake her up fail, and additionally, the RV starts getting ravaged from outside by something unknown. However, after a while, as the trio discuss more outlandish theories regarding their present predicament and try to wake Chris up, a dazed Olivia is seen speaking with someone on the phone, and moments later, she vanishes from the RV to end up on the road in front. In a seemingly possessed state, Olivia moves further along the road while responding to an imaginary Michael, turning a deaf ear to her friends’ pleas for her to return to the RV. Soon enough, Olivia gets surrounded by dense fog, with strange figures lurking around her, and regaining her senses, she hurriedly rushes back to enter the RV. Reaching the door of the vehicle, Olivia frantically pleads with her friends to open it, but another Olivia is seen at the front of the RV imitating her actions. Confused as to what to trust, Carrie asks Gaby and Sarah to not open the door, resulting in Olivia getting torn to shreds by whatever inhuman presence is preying on them.
Did Anyone Survive At The End?
Terror, anxiety, and agony turn speculation into regret and denial, and eventually, a moment of silence follows. To ease the tension a bit, the girls start sharing their interpretation of the terrors of the darkness. Sarah is more of a conspiracy theorist, while Gaby recounts the story of her abuelita’s escape from a Bruja or witch. After another bout of paranormal activities surrounding the RV, things become a lot quieter, and Gaby decides to make a daring move to go outside and ask for help. Staying inside the RV and waiting for an inevitable end is not how Gaby wants things to end, which is why she is willing to make a last-ditch attempt to find help—even with her own legs injured. Taking an axe with her, Gaby steps outside of the RV, and much to the horror of the girl trio, they see the severed remnants of Olivia scattered. A deep sense of guilt afflicts their mind—realizing the fact that they unwittingly caused Olivia’s gruesome death. Gaby proceeds to run along the road, and inside the RV, Carrie breaks down, blaming herself for Olivia’s predicament.
While waiting for Gaby, not knowing whether she is going to ever return, Carrie and Sara proceed to secure the RV by sealing the windows and exit, pulling down the curtains—all in an effort to assuage their minds, in a desperate attempt to feel some sort of security, knowing full well they cannot do anything to stop whatever is out there. In a despondent state of mind, the duo have a heart to heart with each other and decide to reconcile with each other, knowing they might not get the chance to do so ever again. Chris wakes up from his delirious dream in the meantime, and the duo quickly bring him up to speed. As the paranormal activities start once again, Chris doesn’t need much convincing about the authenticity of the crisis. They find satanic texts inside the RV as well and try to connect the dots with Michael’s uncle, believing his past ties with a cult might be the reason for the terrifying occurrences. Chris turns out to be an expert in vehicle engineering, pursuing a course from MIT, much to the surprise of his Carrie and Sarah. Chris goes outside the RV to fix whatever technical problems are cropping up with the vehicle (as if that is the real reason they are stuck), and eventually Carrie also joins to assist him. Realizing the RV is low on fuel, the duo proceed to fetch fuel from the backup reserve, and during this, Sarah, who was inside the RV, continues to get tormented by terrifying apparitions—and as Carrie steps into the RV, she gets accidentally stabbed by Sarah. Chris gets locked outside, and seeing a car approaching from the front, the trio mistakenly consider it to be Gaby returning with help. Chris proceeds to move towards the car until he realizes too late that it is the machinations of the evil presence as well and gets himself impaled to death upon the antlers affixed in the front of the RV.
The only remaining survivors inside the RV, Sarah and an injured Carrie, find themselves trapped in a mentally torturous loop, with moments remaining until sunrise. Suspicions, fear, and doubts hover in both their minds, as despite realizing that they need to stick together to go through this, they find themselves at odds as the ominous presence tries to trick their minds. Finally, as the presence of the otherworldly evil seemingly makes its way into the RV, Carrie decides to escape from the vehicle with Sarah, but to her shock, Sarah ditches her at the last moment and decides to stay inside. Carrie watches in horror as a blinding mist surrounds Sarah inside the RV and seemingly finishes her off. With whatever strength and will that still remains in her, Carries runs through the wilderness, comes across the severed remains of her friends, but doesn’t dare to stop to look for anything else any longer. The daylight slows and brightens the surroundings as Carrie, after a night of dread and despair, finally arrives in front of the highway—plenty of traffic indicates that she can finally be rescued by someone. However, in her limp state, Carrie fails to gather herself and gets run over by an oncoming vehicle. As the movie ends, another group of friends en route to Bluelight, driving through the road that Carrie and her buddies followed, spot the RV and wonder what might have happened with the passengers—oblivious to the fact they themselves are going to meet the same fate soon enough.
In Don’t Turn Out the Lights’ ending, none of the friends survive, and even though Gaby’s fate remains unknown, it is safe to guess that she didn’t survive the evil presence that killed all of her friends. Even though Carrie almost survived at the end, fate didn’t allow her to escape at the end. Whatever evil presence was there in the wilderness—satanist cult, urban legend monsters, demonic spirits, or something else—its identity remains unknown till the very end. Alternatively, think of the movie as, after getting high, a group of friends meeting their demise in increasingly bizarre fashion; that would still make more sense than whatever happened in the woods.
