"A group of friends embark on a road trip to a music festival, oblivious to the supernatural horrors that await them along the way." 

OUR MOVIE REVIEW:

Don’t Turn Out the Lights, the latest offering from writer and director Andy Fickman (Race to Witch Mountain, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2) is a horror/road trip movie that doesn’t stray far from the beaten path. 

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The film follows a group of high school friends who reunite for a birthday celebration, joined by one college roommate. After a brief reunion, they set off on a 24-hour trek to a music festival in an RV affectionately nicknamed “The Beast.” 

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The story leans heavily into horror clichés, with characters fitting the usual tropes. There’s the smart girl Carrie (Bella DeLong), the stoner Chris (Daryl Tofa), the spoiled beauty Sarah (Amber Janea), and the lone couple Michael (Jarret Brown) and Olivia (Crystal Lake Evans). The group is rounded out by Gaby (Ana Zambrana), who curses too much to live long, and ex-Marine Jason (John Bucy), who seems to exist solely as a red herring. 

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The setup is also standard fare: the group gets lost, cell service is spotty, and they encounter some creepy locals who escalate the tension. The film’s early scenes promise a fairly traditional horror movie with jump scares, ominous foreshadowing, and a sense of impending doom looming. However, those elements are executed with such little flair or originality that it’s hard to feel anything beyond mild boredom.

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One of the few fist-pumping moments happens when Jason defends two of the girls from racist locals, only for the scene to devolve into an obligatory chase scene featuring rednecks in a semitruck leading down a winding backroad in the middle of nowhere. This sequence is emblematic of the movie as a whole: moments of potential quickly buried under a mountain of poor choices.

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As the plot progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that the film has little to offer in terms of originality or depth. The characters play a game of “F Mary Kill,” hit something on the road, and then the RV stalls out, leading to a series of events that feel lifted from countless other, better horror movies. 

Nothing really stands out, but the acting and cinematography are at least average. However, the dialogue is painfully on-the-nose, the scares are lackluster, and the special effects are laughably bad.

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By the time the movie reaches its conclusion, it feels like it’s run out of steam entirely. The film’s title, Don’t Turn Out the Lights, is fitting – not because it’s scary, but because watching it might just put you to sleep.