User blog:AustinDR/PE Proposal: Diana Walter (Lights Out)

What is the work?
The film is actually a theatrical adaptation of a short film of the same name which revolved around a woman being haunted by the spirit of a girl. The film can be seen on YouTube. Anyway, Lights Out is about a young woman, named Becca, who realizes that something was up with her mother. Her mother was a former patient at a mental institution, and since that time, she was seemingly followed by a mysterious entity of sorts. The entity in question is visible in the absence of light, and it seems to have a history with the family...

Who is she?
Diana was a 12 year old girl who was sent to a mental institution after she had manipulated her father's mind via mind games, ultimately causing him to kill himself. While at the institution, she met Sophie, and she manipulates her into becoming friends with her. However, Diana was physically abusive towards the young girl, and in one instance, she breaks both of her legs during one of her unprovoked attacks.

Diana had a skin condition that caused her skin to burn in the presence of light; as such, experiments regarding high volumes of light were administered to her. However, she ends up dying as a result of the experiments, and her spirit latches onto Sophie. Years later, Sophie's first husband attempted to help his troubled wife by giving her medicine; however, Diana murders him in order to keep Sophie lucid, and since then, Sophie was convinced that her husband left her, and this caused a rift to form between her relationship with her daughter, Rebecca, or Becca, if you will. Throughout the years, Diana had been enslaving Sophie, thus causing her mental state to suffer.

What has she done?
In the beginning of the film, Paul, Sophie's current husband, was working late at a mannequin warehouse. During that time, he contacts his stepson, Martin, and assures him that his mother would recover after he was notified about her mind slipping again. As Paul was leaving for home, he sees the silhouetted of a feminine figure lurking in the darkness of the building; he gets promptly mauled to death by Diana.

Sometime later, Martin was suffering from insomnia, and Becca decides to let him stay at her apartment. During that night, Sophie hears scratching, and is nearly attacked by Diana. She discovers that the apparition had written its own name on the floor. After conducting some research into the identity of the spirit, Becca learns that Diana was a former patient at the mental institution that her mother was sent to for her depression. However, she dies due to the overexposure of light during the experiments, and that she needs her mother to manifest. She confronts her mother with the information, but Sophie denies it. However, as she was entering into her room, she slyly passes a piece of paper to Becca, asking her to help her.

Diana cuts the power to the house, thus causing Becca and Martin to go into the basement to reignite the fuse box. While they are there, Becca discovers writing on the wall which reveals that Diana had disposed of Sophie's first husband when he was trying to keep Sophie stable (essentially, if Sophie continued to take the medication, Diana would be unable to manifest). This turns out to be an elaborate trap set up by the ghost, and Diana locks them in the basement. She attempts to murder Bret (Becca's boyfriend), but he manages to narrowly escape her wrath, and he goes to the police station to inform that there had been a break in. Two police officers are sent to investigate, only to be unceremoniously slaughtered when they refused to heed Bret's warnings. Diana then opts to gruesomely murder Sophie's children, taking Becca and throwing her hardly off the stairs is one example of this.

Earlier, Sophie realized that Diana wasn't her friend, and she tried to take her medicine in defiance; Diana hits her across the room, knocking her out. Sophie regains consciousness, and she takes one of the slain police officers' guns. Diana attempts to kill Becca in front of her mother, only to realize that Sophie had the gun pointing to her temple. She reminds Diana that without her, she had no way of manifesting and sacrifices herself to save her children. Diana combusts into ashes upon this. With Diana gone, Becca, Bret, and Martin could finally live in peace. At least until a sequel was announced.

Freudian Excuse? Mitigating factors?
Because she became a ghost due to an experiment going awry, you would think that this serves as an explanation for her behavior. However, the film depicts Diana as being an EnfantTerrible even before she became an apparition.

As for her relationship with Sophie, it is entirely AllTakeAndNoGive. Even when she was alive she was possessive of Sophie, and had no qualms with physically harming her without a second thought. She only became worse when she latched her spirit onto Sophie; she enslaved the poor woman for years, causing a rift to form between her and her family, and she's very clearly suffering from her mistreatment. One thing that should be noted is how Diana doesn't actively try to murder her children until the climax; rather, she stalks and harasses them. However, it's possible that she only did this because Sophie would return to taking the medicine (and keeping her expelled from her mind) if she ever threatened her children.

Heinous standard
She's really the sole villain in the film, so she sets it.