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 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.
Origin[]
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, she began committing a dozen vicious assaults towards patients. At some point during her stay, Diana 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 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. Diana is locked in Sophie's basement, where she leaves diary messages using fingerprints on the walls.
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.
As a Spirit[]
Some years later, 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. However, it is revealed that Diana killed Paul because like Sophie's first husband, he was trying to help Sophie recover from her depression.
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 Diana needs Sophie to manifest to the living world. She confronts her mother about Diana, but Sophie denies it. However, as she is 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 Rebecca's 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.