
bit.lyBefore ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms,’ ‘Lights Out’ Blazed the Trail From YouTube to Studio HitThis year, audiences flocked to features by filmmakers who cut their teeth on online shorts, like Curry Barker (Obsession), Kane Parsons (Backrooms) and Markiplier (Iron Lung). But they follow in the footsteps of David F. Sandberg, whose 2016 Lights Out was the first studio-backed horror movie to originate as a YouTube short. The Swedish native’s two-and-a-half-minute film starred his wife, Lotta Losten, as a woman stalked by a mysterious figure when the lights go out. After making the short on virtually no budget, Sandberg entered it in the Bloody Cuts Horror Challenge, winning best director. Months later, a Reddit post linked to it, page views skyrocketed from 8,000 to more than a million and Hollywood came calling.