‘Lights Out’ Blazed Trail From YouTube to Studio Hit

This 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,…