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| “ | Keep the lights out. | „ |
| ~ Diana Walter |
Diana Walter is the main antagonist of the 2016 horror film Lights Out, which is based on the 2013 short film of the same name.
She is an evil spirit who was originally a human girl that was diagnosed with a rare skin disorder which caused her to react negatively to light. After being killed in a failed medical procedure, she became an evil spirit who murders her victims in the dark.
Her ghostly self was portrayed by Alicia Vela-Bailey (who also portrayed Alisha Whitley in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), whereas her human counterpart was portrayed by Ava Cantrell.
Biography[]
Short film[]
The short film revolves around an unnamed woman (portrayed by Lotta Losten) being haunted by the spirit of a mysterious girl that only manifests in the absence of light. The film ends with the spirit girl turning the lights off, and presumably murdering the woman.
Early life[]
Diana Walter was born in 1971. She was diagnosed with a rare skin disorder that caused her to react negatively to light and preferred to live in the dark. When she was 13-year-old, Diana was taken to a mental hospital after she had manipulated her father into killing himself via mind games. During her stay at the mental hospital, Diana began committing a dozen vicious assaults towards patients. At some point during her stay, she met a young girl named Sophie Lloyd, who was hospitalized there for depression, and manipulated her into thinking that they were friends. Since then, she became physically abusive and obsessive towards Sophie, as at some point, she attacked Sophie by breaking two of her fingers when she was just starting to recover from her depression.
Eventually, an experimental therapy, which was conducted on Diana, intended to heal her skin. She was chained to a chair and exposed to extremely high levels of light. Unfortunately, the therapy went awry; instead of being healed, Diana was burnt to ashes in agony. Since then, her spirit had latched itself unto Sophie, and could only appear when she neglected to take her anti-depression medication. But if Sophie received medication without Diana's influence, her spirit would temporarily disappear.
Years later, when Sophie's first husband attempted to help his wife get stable, Diana murdered him and manipulated her into believing that her husband left her. This caused a rift to form between Sophie's relationship with her daughter, Rebecca. Throughout the years, Diana had been haunting Sophie, thus causing her mental state to suffer.
Present Day[]
In the beginning of the film, Sophie's second husband, Paul Wells was working late at night at a mannequin shop. During that time, he contacts his son, Martin, and assures him that his mother would recover after he was informed about her going through one of her episodes. When Paul is leaving for home, he sees the silhouetted of a feminine figure (who was actually none other than Diana) lurking in the darkness of the building; he gets promptly mauled to death by Diana.
Sometime later, Martin witnesses his mother talking to something in the dark, which is Diana. Sophie notices Martin and comforts him about the event, but as Martin goes back to bed he notices Diana behind Sophie, and locks himself in his bedroom out of fear. Shortly thereafter Martin begins to have trouble staying awake at school, and his older half-sister Rebecca decides to let him stay at her apartment. During that night, Rebecca hears scratching, and is nearly attacked by Diana. The next morning, she discovers that the apparition had written its own name on the floor. After conducting some research into the identity of the spirit, Rebecca learns of Diana's past with Sophie and that she needs her mother to manifest. She confronts her mother about Diana, but Sophie denies it. However, as she was entering into her room, she secretly passes a piece of paper to Rebecca, asking her to help her as Diana will not let her go.
Rebecca and Martin attempt to free their mother of the evil spirit's power, which invokes Diana's wrath. They attempt to keep the lights burning throughout the house; however, Diana cuts the power to the house, causing them to go into the basement in order to restart the generator. She then slams the door on the two, trapping them. Meanwhile, Sophie was looking for her children until she sees Diana backing up from the light. Sophie realized that Diana wasn't her friend and immediately told her not to hurt her children, as they don't know any better, however Diana threatens Sophie. As the both of them got into an argument, Sophie told her not to threaten her. Diana became furious and knocked Sophie unconscious when she was trying to take her medicine.
Diana attempts to kill Rebecca's boyfriend, Bret, but he manages to narrowly escape her wrath by shining the headlight of his car on her and drives away to find the cops and alerts them about the domestic disturbance. Two police officers are sent to investigate, only to be unceremoniously slaughtered by Diana when they refused to heed Bret's warnings. Diana then attempts to gruesomely kill Sophie's children, ignoring her pleas to spare them.
As Rebecca goes alone to find her mother, Diana reveals to her that she killed her father for trying to help Sophie recover from her depression. She then injures Rebecca for trying to do the same by grabbing her and throwing her hardly off the stairs, but as Diana attempts to kill her, Sophie, who had regained consciousness, gives her one final warning not to hurt her children. Rebecca tells her mother that Diana was the one who killed her father.
Sophie retrieves one of the dead officers' guns and shoots at Diana to no effect, causing her to dismiss Sophie's threat and telling her that guns can't hurt her. Sophie then reminds Diana that without her, she couldn't manifest in the physical world, and points the gun at her own temple. Diana lunges at Sophie to try and stop her as Sophie pulls the trigger, and disappears into ashes. The film ends with the ambulance arriving to tend to the protagonists' wounds. Without any warning, the lights began to flicker, but Brad assures them that Diana is truly gone.
Victims[]
Lights Out (2016)[]
- Her father - Committed suicide by blowing his head off with a shotgun after being manipulated by Diana, body shown.
- Sophie's husband - Murdered by Diana, mentioned.
- Paul Wells - Pulled into the dark and mauled to death by Diana off-screen, scream heard and body shown.
- Officer Andrews - Dragged away and mutilated by Diana off-screen.
- Officer Gomez - Eyes ripped out by Diana off-screen, body shown.
- Sophie Wells - Reason for death
Powers and Abilities[]
Diana was said to have the ability to get inside people's heads and change them, which was true because when she was still alive, she manipulated her own father's mind and influenced him to commit suicide. She also most likely got inside Sophie's mind and manipulated her into thinking that they were friends. After her death, she had latched herself to Sophie's mind; as long as Sophie was alive, Diana could project herself in the world of the living. Hypothetically speaking, if Sophie were to die, Diana would no longer exist as her ties to the world would be severed in the event of Sophie's demise. Additionally, she can be temporarily expelled from her mind as long as she took her medication.
Diana can only physically appear in the absence of light, a trait that was passed on from her former life. When she was human, her skin reacted negatively to the slightest hint of light, going as far as to burn her. In addition, she has near-superhuman strength and agility. However, Diana can be seen under black lights; this is proven when Martin found a black light when he and Rebecca were trying to turn the generator back on. They speculate that they can use the black light to see and attack Diana, but this possibility is never explored. Because she vanishes in sufficient light, firearms prove useless against her, as she simply phases out of existence during the muzzle flash. In theory a manual weapon that did not emit light could make contact with her, possibly even a firearm which suppressed its muzzle flash or which was fired from a great distance. However, based only on what is seen in the film, it is not known if she can be injured with physical weapons.
Gallery[]
Images[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- Diana was created through the use of a photorealistic prosthetic suit.
- Originally, Sophie's suicide wasn't supposed to work; David Sandberg, the director of Lights Out, explained that the ending was changed after the test audience reacted negatively to the uselessness of Sophie's sacrifice.
- Diana shares a few similarities with Mister Babadook, the titular main antagonist of the horror film of the same name. Both are demonic entities that tend to be shrouded in darkness, they both cause one of the leading characters to suffer mentally, and they both can be taken as metaphors for a larger idea. For instance, some suggest that the Babadook represents grief and how strong it can get if left unattended, whereas Diana is believed to represent depression as she seems to manifest whenever Sophie is having mental issues.
External Links[]
- Diana Walter at the Pure Evil Wiki