Name : Jeannette Catsoulis / Alias : New York Times
Spackling over any copycat cracks with strong acting and fleet editing, "Lights Out" delivers minimalist frights in old-school ways.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
A small, pitch-black treat, "Lights Out" takes a common childhood terror and uses it to spin a horror story with a new kind of ghost and some familiar, but still effective shocks.

Name : Christian Holub / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Like the most enjoyable horror movies, Lights Out is almost a physical experience, carrying viewers from stress and terror to even some tension-breaking hilarity.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Bello is an excellent actress and makes Sophie's anguish credible, although she can't rise above the material.

Name : Robert Abele / Alias : TheWrap
Occasionally succumbs to certain rudimentary hallmarks of industrial studio horror, but for the most part it's agreeably suspenseful, date-night arm-squeezing genre fare.

Name : April Wolfe / Alias : Village Voice
Lights Out needs to be seen in a darkened theater next to someone who won't judge you for jumping out of your seat.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Awfully inept .

Name : Jim Slotek / Alias : Toronto Sun
A terrifically effective little scarefest.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
The fun wears out fast and so does the "gotcha" factor.

Name : Joshua Rothkopf / Alias : Time Out
Once the film runs out of unusual lighting schemes to exploit (violet-hued goth black lighting, random blasts of car headlights, etc.), it loses power faster than a millennial with a long-overdue electric bill. But that one shadow lady is enough.

Name : Katie Walsh / Alias : Tribune News Service
Built on a clever premise, the film is executed seamlessly. It's the best expression of a low-budget horror flick: resourceful and smart, where the most charismatic character is the ghoul itself.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
"Lights Out" is an effective, tidy little chiller; basically the same sneak-up-in-the-dark scare over and over. But hey, as we've learned through decades of horror movies, that stuff works.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Los Angeles Times
The tale of a restless evil spirit who suffers from an extreme aversion to light, this nifty little chiller may be the first movie of its kind to unite the pleasure of a good haunting with the horror of an unpaid electricity bill.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Unfortunately, the film stumbles, offering too few legitimate scares and displaying an overreliance on traditional horror movie cliches.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
The film is blatantly, unmistakably about mental illness, and that makes it hard to ignore or forgive what it ends up saying (hopefully by accident) on the subject.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
The scares are cheap, but they're frequently effective, the same way that if you're hungry junk food might fill you up. It doesn't mean you'll feel good about it later.

Name : Brad Wheeler / Alias : Globe and Mail
There are a few inconsistencies with the scary bits, but the script is rich, and having Teresa Palmer as a badass adult daughter with commitment issues - typically a male role - is refreshing.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Sandberg . spares us from the indignity of jump scares. When he sets out to frighten you, he means it.

Name : Lou Lumenick / Alias : New York Post
Swedish filmmaker David F. Sandberg makes an impressive feature debut with this spooky, less-is-more expansion of his short that landed him this first Hollywood gig.

Name : Alison Willmore / Alias : BuzzFeed News
At 81 minutes, unfolding in a handful of key locations, and opting for practical effects and clever framing over computer-generated imagery, Lights Out is still lean and concentrated, and it benefits from that spareness.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
Palmer and Bello really do seem like world-weary, spook-addled daughter and mother, and they play the stakes just so, favoring neither blase understatement nor yellow-highlighter melodrama.

Name : Leah Pickett / Alias : Chicago Reader
A brisk, studio-glossy feature that's predictable and heavily reliant on jump scares but spooky good fun nonetheless.

Name : Andrew Barker / Alias : Variety
Never strays too far from its source, essentially repeating the same jump scare, over and over again, for most of its muscular 80 minute running time. What's most shocking is how well it still works.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
In the end, it's just a little horror movie, but the director knows that and doesn't overplay his hand.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
In some ways the film is like an amusement park ride. You see the curves and twists coming, but if you're going fast enough, they're scary anyway.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Predictable stuff, energized by some spiffy scare effects and actors who perform well beyond the call of fright-house duty.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
"Lights Out" deserves to be considered in the company of such recent horror standouts as "It Follows," "The Babadook," "Goodnight Mommy" and "The Witch."

Name : Peter Sobczynski / Alias : RogerEbert.com
For the most part, though, the film is just a tired tread through the usual elements.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
Even the most cynical, jaded, seen-it-all-before critic cannot deny certain visceral reactions to a film. Lights Out gave me the chills.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
A nifty fright flick with glimmers of depth. Short and effective.

Name : Edward Douglas / Alias : New York Daily News
Unsettling enough to make you think twice about what might be in the room with you when the lights go out.

Name : Justin Lowe / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A surprisingly maternal horror movie that relies as much on fraying emotional bonds as supernatural suspense to create tension.