There's a very simple formula to making a good horror film. Take the audience through an intense and terrifying experience but let the good guys win. And make them worthy of victory. A horror film doesn't become better because the evil entity kills everyone in sight. There are rare occasions where you can have a tragic ending in a horror film and have that totally work for you but the only example I can think of is The Exorcist (and possibly, The Blair Witch Project).
In this film, you could maybe say 'the good guys won' but both the daughter and her boyfriend were artificial and unlikeable. The daughter abandoned her struggling mother at a particularly vulnerable time and her boyfriend was, at best, insipid and at worst, a quasi-emo jack-off mainly interested in repeatedly getting into the daughter's pants. It's the mother that I wanted 'victory' for, in the form of a happy ending. Throughout her life, Sophie (the mother) has been manipulated and controlled by this evil entity (Diana) and in brief moments of lucidity, Sophie calls for help only to not get any. In the end, Sophie kills herself to save unworthy people (except the son).
Darkness Falls, while similar to Lights Out in certain structural and thematic respects, actually feels like an anti-thesis to Lights Out. We have an intense and scary film, worthy protagonists, a consistent evil force and a good ending. This is how you do it right.
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