So we just cut off the ending to where it ends now, did another test screening and the scores were fantastic. They thought that made it so that Sophie’s sacrifice had been in vain. And you know, Diana came back once more and people hated that. A few people actually wrote across the cards, ‘Get rid of the second ending!’ Originally the movie kept going for about nine minutes longer than it does now. When we read the cards people had filled out, they said they hated the ending we had. But then, when we got the test score back, it was actually not very good. Seeing the film in front of an audience was great at first because they were laughing when they were supposed to laugh and they were scared when they were supposed to be scared. “Well, the reason it’s so short is because we cut out the film’s original ending after our first test screening. And what I realised is that’s pretty much all directing is: telling people what you want.” I’d always done everything by myself – all the technical aspects of film-making – so I’d never had to explain to people what I wanted to do.

I had to ask the first assistant director when to say ‘action!’ because I didn’t know the procedures of a film set. And I hardly even knew what all the different people on set did. I’d never even been on a film set before, but all of a sudden I came to this new country and I was just supposed to be in charge of a movie production. I’d only ever worked on such a small scale in Sweden with really small amounts of money. “I mean, everything was pretty hard to be honest. What was the most challenging aspect of turning your short into a feature-length film? So then you have to turn the lights back on again just to check.” I’m sure a lot of people have experienced that same thing it’s based on: when you turn off the lights at night, you think you see something there in the shadows.

“I think it’s the fear of the dark that’s so universal.

Why do you think your original short film really captured people’s imaginations? Ahead of it arriving on DVD, Blu-Ray and home download, NME chats to Sandberg about Lights Out‘s success, his next film Annabelle 2, and the future of the horror movie genre. Yet it proved so popular online that the Swedish film-maker was whisked to Hollywood to turn it into a feature-length movie that grossed nearly $150 million (£120 million) this summer. Sandberg’s 2013 short about an evil entity that can only stalk you in the darkness, clocked in at under three minutes long.

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